AS A house-builder with a lifetime’s experience I find Tracey Simpson Laing’s comments (Letters, December 22) outrageous. She purports to know what I and other house-builders are thinking. She does not.

It is disgraceful that she should attempt to express false views from an industry she has done so much to damage.

The downturn in the economy and mortgage restrictions are not the reasons why I and so many house-builders like me are scaling back operations with a view to early retirement.

What is causing contraction of the industry (despite huge demand and need for housing) is the plethora of red tape, rules, regulations, obligations, penalties and ever-increasing costs which have been imposed on the industry since 1997, when Labour came to power and decided to turn the planning system into a bureaucratic nightmare and an extension of the Treasury.

The affordable housing policies are without doubt the biggest obstacle to house-building in York. If they were abolished tomorrow there would be an immediate upturn.

The changes to the policy do not help but make matters worse, because they now apply to even the smallest house-building scheme. The industry in York is doomed to more years of stagnation.

York council can have as many consultant reports and policies as it likes. What it can’t do is to force house-builders like me to start up our cement mixers.

John Jones, Sand Hutton, York.


• Coun Simpson-Laing says large national house-builders “have no problem” with City of York Council’s affordable housing policy (Letters, December 22).

If this is the case, then perhaps she can explain why national house-builders Barratt and Persimmon have not started any sites in York under the 50 per cent policy while it has been in force for nearly six years.

Persimmon have planning permission for a 720-plot site at Germany Beck which has 34 per cent affordable units, but this has not and will not start at this level.

York’s new targets of 35 per cent for greenfield and 25 per cent for brownfield sites are predicated on fictitious land values in the Fordham Viability Study, and there has been opposition to these targets from York’s house-building community, including Persimmon.

The consensus amongst the experts is that a target of 15 per cent should have been set, but despite numerous written requests for this, the council has chosen to ignore this in favour of higher unworkable targets based on a flawed viability study.

A target and policy that house-builders do not have a problem with is one that allows them to build houses – a concept that both Coun Simpson-Laing, and York council fail to understand. York’s housing problem will not be solved unless they listen to and work with the experts, instead of against them.

Paul S Cordock, Durlston Drive, Strensall, York.