Possible solution to housing shortage

Like all councillors, I was disappointed that Redbridge outbid Canterbury City Council for the Howe Barracks site (We Must Build More Homes To Rent, Letters and Opinion, Kentish Gazette, June 2).

But the solutions presented by Cllr Alan Baldock (Lab) and James Flanagan (Lib Dem) in last week’s Gazette would do nothing at all to reduce our own waiting list.

Ignoring for a moment that Redbridge, a Labour council, had fewer qualms about taking advantage of this rule, Cllr Baldock’s insistence on an implausible level of council house building free from a lack of space, money, and local objection is folly.

And while more affordable housing is essential, as Mr Flanagan says, what he didn’t say was that only 3% of those on the waiting list could afford them – hardly a practical solution.

Shortening the waiting list requires tackling it from both ends. As a council we should continue to support preventative measures that stop the list increasing. At the same time we should press ahead with a social letting agency and get more families into homes.

Such agencies are relatively simple. Those waiting for homes are given access to privately-rented accommodation, previously not offered to them.

The council, operating on a large scale, spreads the risk while also ensuring longer tenancies allowing parents to settle, and their children to prosper.

Only then might we see the list come down and life chances improve.

Far from being the cause of the problem as Cllr Baldock suggests, the private sector might actually be the solution.

And while he and I may argue, I doubt those finally finding a home care very much about ideology. Cllr Stephen Bartley (Con) Clare Road, Whitstable Barry Hollis from Sheerness took this picture of seagulls taking up parking spaces in Canterbury. He said: “Do they have to pay to park too? I hope he had his disabled badge.” in last week’s Gazette contained a particularly horrible typo which was solely our responsibility and not the letter writer who took it in extremely good stead. We apologise for any inadvertent offence caused. spending has been increased and he has put into law the UK meeting the NATO target of 2% of GDP.

His government is also committed to Trident renewal.

Whatever way people decide to vote, they should do so on the basis of fact not assertion, prejudice or a vague hope that the grass will be greener outside the EU. Vote remain. Martin Roche Stuppington Court Farm, Canterbury

The leave campaign is quite correct when it says immigration is increasing, we are sending billions to the Brussels and remaining in will limit our sovereignty and control of our country.

So why would anyone in their right mind want to remain in the EU?

Perhaps we should take a closer look at these issues and their implications.

On immigration more than half the people coming to stay in the UK are non-eu and most EU migrants would still qualify to come to the UK under our present selective entry system, so it makes little difference whether we leave or remain.

Financially far from sending £50 million day to Brussels, the sum is £23 million, when rebates and money returned to the UK are deducted.

This money is mainly to help the poorer counties in the EU who suffered under Soviet domination for so many years and represents only 0.5% of our GDP, or half a penny in the pound!

It that really too much for a rich country like ours to give to help others less fortunate?

Finally the perhaps most important issue, the question of sovereignty and control of our country.

I regularly visit churches in towns and villages in Kent and always spend time looking at the poignant words on the war memorials.

So many lives cut short, even in the smallest villages, and I reflect if the EU had been in existence prior to 1914, none of this sad loss would have happened.

The EU was set up to prevent wars in Europe by controlling the weapons of war, coal and steel, and it has fulfilled this role admirably for the last 70 years.

Yes we give up some of our sovereignty and control of our country, but so do all the other 27 EU countries, which prevents them from ever resorting to war in Europe again. Mike Armstrong Queens Avenue, Canterbury