Like many people I am sick of hearing that green field and seaside sites are to be ripped up for ‘affordable housing’.

Affordable by whom? Young people leave uni with thousands of pounds of debt repayable as soon as they have a living wage. Under 24s only receive reduced state benefits if any, pensioners are too old to get a mortgage and many workers have not seen a pay rise in six years. What we need is a return to proper council housing as a lifestyle choice, not described as some state hand out.

Discounts on the sale of council housing should be a max of 15% and only then if a new council house is built or purchased to replace it.

We also have news that there is empty housing the size of a small city in the UK.

We should bus those on the housing lists to where these places are, whilst introducing a five-year UK residence qualification period to the allocation of council housing, scrapping the bidding system (return to the points system and waiting lists) so that decent housing is available to all, not just those on the streets who become category A. It would also help if those on the transfer list were able to move to empty council houses and allocate their properties to new tenants, allowing those under Category A to improve themselves.

This done, restrict the amount of housing benefit paid to private landlords as currently their rents are made up of mortgage plus profit.

Most of that rent is paid for by council tax payers in the form of housing benefit allowing landlords to end up with a property to sell and retire on funded by the state.

Robert Lambeth, Martin Road, Hove