YORK is indebted to Joseph Rowntree and his commitment to tackling poverty.

The York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest report on the future housing market demonstrates how essential housing and planning policy is to tackling poverty:

• Private rents are set to rise 90 per cent in real terms and twice as fast as incomes until 2040, leading to more than 50 per cent of private renters falling into poverty.

• Poverty levels will only be contained by providing more affordable housing – doubling new homes to 200,000 a year, social rents being pegged to just over inflation and housing benefit meeting proportions of rent it did in 2008.

Failing to build in sufficient numbers in York against the demographic and economic tide over the past 15 years has already caused York house prices and private-sector rents to soar.

Many residents on low and middle incomes are trapped paying massive rents compared to their incomes, with their only way out to leave the city.

It’s crucial Local Plan housing targets reflect this reality, and offer the hope of affordable homes to the great many people stuck in ‘generation rent’ who can ill afford to rent, let alone buy their own homes.

Cllr Dave Merrett (Labour), Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, Planning and Sustainability, City of York Council.