PEOPLE on the York housing list must feel they are involved in a particularly cruel game of snakes and ladders.

As the months and years go by, they slowly climb towards the front of the queue - only for someone with more points to leap ahead, sending them spiralling downwards.

More than 3,000 people are on the list which, by any calculation, adds up to a housing crisis.

This is not the fault of the city council, which is regarded as a good landlord both by its tenants and the Government. Outside forces and national policy are to blame.

Extra jobs created in the city have increased demand for property, pushing house prices even further beyond the reach of most first-time buyers.

Meanwhile, the right-to-buy scheme has seen council housing stock diminish faster than replacement social homes can be built.

York council allocates its housing according to a points system, designed to ensure that those with the greatest need are rehoused quickest.

The downside is that many people living in unsatisfactory accommodation can languish on the list for years.

The housing scrutiny board's proposed reforms, which would scrap points in favour of a bidding system, are an imaginative and bold attempt to move forward. Allied to a severe restriction in the right-to-buy scheme, the new deal should see more York residents climb the property ladder into a home of their own.

Updated: 10:43 Wednesday, March 30, 2005