I would like to respond to Jonathan Sheppard (Letters, February 13) and his points on local housing.

Of course, no individual is to blame for the current crisis. But it was Margaret Thatcher who stressed individual rights and allowed social policy to crumble.

Indeed, she famously said there is no such thing as society.

Such a view was not surprising in the Eighties. But we expect a Labour administration, both nationally and locally, to be radically different.

No single individual causes the housing crisis but many individuals acting in the same way do.

The councillors were elected to represent all the residents, yet they were compliant in the Place To Be campaign, which has encouraged the moneyed inrush.

I wish Mr Sheppard well in his new home. But six months is too short to know Brighton and Hove.

The Argus is available on microfilm at the library and a browse through the past few years would reveal much.

City status and an elected mayor were hot topics and the housing crisis was brewing in the meantime.

-Peter Poole, Hove