Brighton and Hove City Council is in a dilemma over the poor state of its housing stock (The Argus, April 16) only a week after Tehmtan Framroze was telling The Argus how important it was to introduce rules for private landlords to improve standards.

The council and housing associations are exempt from legislation the council seeks to impose on the private sector yet shout the loudest when their own stock - even though receiving grant aid and subsidy - is substandard.

Does this not show the folly of a non-integrated housing policy based on three separate tiers of housing - private, social and council? Far better to have just one housing policy, with all having to keep to the same rules and letting on the same basis, with the help going at the point of contact, being based on the individual recipient's needs rather than couched within different subsidies and rent structures.

At least if the system was based on individual needs we would know that housing would be distributed according to need, rather than a situation in which a tenant can be in need one week and win the Lottery the next but still be in a vastly subsidised rent structure in council housing, depriving others in real need.

-John Stevens, Roman Crescent, Southwick