Housing crisis needs sorting

Brighton's reputation as The Place To Be is attracting thousands of people who want to live in a town that is really buzzing.

But that reputation is pushing up property prices at a faster rate than almost anywhere else in the country with dire effects on those at the

bottom of the heap.

Some of them are being made

homeless as landlords sell their homes and make more money in profit than they ever could by renting.

Others simply cannot afford to pay rents any more, which has the same effect.

Jenny Backwell, director of the Brighton Housing Trust, knows more about these pressures than anyone else in town and she's spelling out the problems in the Argus today.

She's right to say that only a change in Government policy will do.

Councils, housing associations and trusts will never manage it on their own.

The Government has got to ensure that there is more affordable housing in the town than there is at the moment or there will be an insidious knock-on effect.

Not only will many people be poorly housed or homeless, but many others, needed for vital jobs, will no longer be able to afford to live there.

Have a heart

Having your car stolen is always upsetting for the victim.

But it was even worse for Debbie Mouland, from Brighton, because she used her Escort to take her 15-year-old son, Craig, up to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for treatment.

Whoever stole the car could not have missed the disabled sticker in the

window.

Even the meanest thieves can show remorse.

So if they read about the plight of Debbie and Craig, they should quickly and quietly return it.

What a pane

It was bad luck for Gerald Clark, from Lancing, when he went to his front door in a wheelchair knowing the caller was from the Benefits Agency.

Agency officer Wendy Raymond, checking on his disability, instantly recognised him as her window cleaner.

As a result, he appeared in court and was lucky to escape a jail sentence.

The sort of fiddling this

not-so-disabled window cleaner did was really beyond the pail.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.