Desperate need for more council homes

Dear Editor Perth and Kinross Council has decided to impose a quota of at least 20 per cent of smaller houses for sale on developers to make it easier for young couples to get on the property ladder.

That move is welcome, but there are many thousands out there who cannot afford to buy a house or even a flat, no matter how small.

Councils everywhere, especially in the big cities, should be building council houses and flats as if there were no tomorrow. Now that shops are closing all over the country, these should also be taken over by councils and converted into council housing.

As few houses as possible should be built on green-belt land. There are many vacant brownfield sites or gaps in town centres which could be made available for council housing.

At the moment, television programmes such as ‘Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away’ regularly show vulnerable people such as immigrants, especially illegal ones, being forced to pay exorbitant rents to unscrupulous landlords for accommodation not even fit for animals.

At the other end of the spectrum, honest landlords are being exploited by tenants who use every trick in the book to avoid paying rent while they occupy perfectly sound accommodation for months, if not years.

Providing much more council housing for rent would go a long way towards solving many of today’s housing problems, George K McMillan Mount Tabor Avenue Perth I was somewhat bemused by Roseanna Cunningham MSP’s eloquently phrased column in the Perthshire Advertiser of August 24, regarding the proposed closure of a number of rural schools within your constituency, and her perceived effects on the wider community.

May I remind her that in 2005/6, during the SNP-led administration of Perth and Kinross Council, St Fillans Primary School was mothballed and the school and schoolhouse subsequently sold.

On that occasion despite a request to do so, she failed to comment or provide any assistance to our local community.

I sincerely hope that her currently held views are genuine and not just an attention-seeking jibe at the present PKC administration – only time will tell.

However I, for one, remain a sceptic. Mr Brierley St Fillans