We need radical action to build more affordable housing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/19/radical-action-affordable-housing

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As the local councillor for Newington, part of Giles Fraser's parish, I found his analysis of the breakdown in the relationship between housing and employment thoroughly persuasive (Loose canon, 16 June). The combined effect of soaring house prices, a shortage of decent private rented accommodation with secure tenure, and failure to invest in a new generation of council housing has driven many local families out of areas such as Walworth, leaving behind many neighbourhoods where a sense of community appears lost.

So what's to be done? Local councils need capital borrowing restrictions lifted to improve supply of affordable housing – instead of being forced to rely on private development. We also need more housing that allows families to put down sustainable roots. With deep recession and rising unemployment, public investment in a new wave of council housing would help alleviate acute social need and boost aggregate demand in the economy, getting people back to work. Eric Pickles isn't listening. But radical political action is needed. Cllr Patrick Diamond London borough of Southwark

• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study into future housing shortage (Under-30s to become generation rent as housing shortage hits home, 13 June) closely follows a report from Population Matters which highlights the enormous cost burden involved in building for the predicted rise in the UK population in the next 20 years – a rise equivalent to 10 new Birminghams.

This would not only mean houses, but everything with it: power stations, sewage works, water storage and supply systems, roads, schools, hospitals etc. And all this in a country facing conflicting and irreconcilable development pressures wherever one looks, and whose economy shows little sign of being able to bear the cost of the infrastructure needed. We can't afford this, andeven if we could we, don't have the land. Governments will still promise to build our way out of the problem, and they will continue to fail to deliver. Until and unless we take seriously the dangers of the rapidly rising population, the next generation can look forward only to ever more cramped and expensive living conditions. Chris Padley Lincoln

• You report that by 2020 the number of under-30s living with "mum and dad" will be 3.7 million, with their dreams dashed of owning their own homes. It's also been reported that local authorities are keen to re-let underoccupied council properties, moving tenants to smaller homes that better suit their needs. Minimising empty bedrooms in the housing stock makes good sense. After all, housing is a finite resource, currently in under-supply. So is it not time for homeowning parents to downsize, to liberate equity to help their children? If they have space in their homes to accommodate their adult children, these homes are too large for the parents alone. If, by this means, part of the "family asset" is transferred to the next generation at a younger age, first, they benefit from an early start on the housing ladder and, second, there is potential to reduce inheritance tax. Downsizing also frees up family-size homes in the market for people who need them. Richard Ferraro London

• The belief that not to own your house is degrading is very much a Major-Thatcherite concept. A principal cause of the housing shortage is the sale of council houses. The growth of the buying to rent-out industry, at uncontrolled spiralling "market force prices " leads to a needless sense of failure in an increasingly material-minded capital-ruled society. Do we really need a homeowning democracy? In many European states renting is the norm. I have lived in council housing most of my life - 30 years or so at my present address - and have seen the house modernised bit by bit over that time. I have willingly paid increasing rents to pay for this, as well as council taxes to cover the myriad services I have come to expect as normal, such as repairs, refuse collection, street lighting, etc, knowing that the rents paid are fair. Perhaps I am lucky to rent in a system called "almos" (or arms-length, controlled areas) funded by the local council but run by democratically elected volunteers, which seems to work well. Any problems stem from outside influences and the crisis of capital and the deregulation of banks. The idea that so much land and property can be bought by the highest bidder, re the buying up of land redeveloped for the Olympic Games (Observer, 10 June) regardless of local needs, is truly appalling and leads to extortionate rents forcing people to leave homes they can no longer afford to live in, for example, in central london. Maureen Berlin Leeds