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I was shocked and appalled to read Stephen Sumner’s article (page 5, Bath Chronicle, August 2) that the council development control committee had decided to give the go ahead for the proposed development of the Avon Street car park, as part of the North Quays project, without any provision for social or affordable housing. How gullible and irresponsible are they to, yet again, fail to provide an amenity that is so desperately needed in the city of Bath. How many more sites under their control are they going to fritter away to greedy developers, who come with their ‘sob story’ that they can’t afford to build social and affordable houses? Here I agree with Cllr Paul Crossley; greedy landowners seek to maintain high land values, and developers rarely open their books to demonstrate how unaffordable things are; and of course will never disclose the level of profits for their shareholders! As you reported, transport campaigner Dave Redgewell confirmed that the council’s own policy is to provide 30 per cent of any new development as social housing’ so why has it failed to do so? The riverside development has provided no social housing, and this area too will fail to do so. It’s appalling! What this city needs more than anything is affordable housing so that those who already work in Bath don’t have to travel 10 miles or more each way every day to outlying towns because they can’t afford high Bath prices. This would also go some way to alleviate travel congestion, parking and reduce pollution in the city. Does their plan include any of these measures? The city gave over much of the office space it owned to the university when the Ministry of Defence moved out, so why do we need more office space if it was not considered necessary at the time? Your article includes a comment from Simon Martin (infrastructure and development officer) saying that we need to reduce the reliance on tourism and retail. So over the past three years, having had an explosion in hotel accommodation, why do we need a further 130 bedrooms? And retail? There are already so many empty shops in Bath; and do we really need any more restaurants? This council needs to have a reality check on some of the decisions it makes. Sometimes the greed of a few needs to be balanced by the need of the many to enable a better society to thrive. Greville Mills Meadow Park Bathford