HAVING failed to become a Labour councillor, Owain Gardner now fails to provide any credible response to the valid criticisms of Matthew Laverack against disastrous affordable housing policies (Letters, June 11).

Cheap jibes about an eccentric epithet and the consumption of champagne do not constitute a coherent argument in support of a policy which has so clearly failed to do what it said on the tin.

The council house waiting list of 3,500 will never be reduced by punitive policies which do not deliver affordable homes, but force house-builders out of business.

As a former house-builder, I applaud Mr Laverack’s vigorous defence of the construction industry against ineffective damaging policies and the ludicrous comments of the loony left.

John Jones, Sand Hutton, York.