Immigration has always been a feature of this country

For the second time in as many months I saw a letter in the Echo blaming “immigration” for our national shortage of housing.

Immigration has been a fact of British life for hundreds of years so I was wondering which particular immigrants are responsible for our current woes. Could it be the Irish immigrants who flocked here in the 19th century to escape the potato famine and the resultant destitution? Or, was it the Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in Russia at the start of the 20th century or Nazi persecution after 1933?

Or, maybe it was the Italians and Polish people who settled here post-Second World War. Or, again, it could be the Commonwealth citizens invited to come and settle in the UK in the 50s and 60s to meet our labour needs; or maybe it was the Ugandan Asians who arrived in their thousands having been expelled from Uganda by the dictator Idi Amin.

I suspect, though, it is the more recent immigrants from Eastern Europe who are the more likely suspects for the blame.

Perhaps there are alternative explanations for the current housing shortage. What about the 5.2 million people in the UK who own “second homes”, many of which are left empty for most of the year for the convenience of their owners?

Or, how about the Thatcher era policy of selling off the UK’s council houses and preventing councils from using the proceeds to build more council houses?

Or, what about the large building companies who hold over 600,000 plots of land with planning permission for houses but choose not to build but wait for the prices to continue to rise to maximise their profits?

The lack of sufficient housing has many complex reasons including “immigration”.

However, flawed Government policies, lack of Government investment in our infrastructure, and builders’ greed must also take a share of the blame.

Frank Fay, Loughborough