Rent cap won’t tackle the housing shortage

I AGREE with most of the article written by Dr Quintin Bradley “Anger of Generation Rent echoes protest of the past” (The Yorkshire Post, November 22).

I read this article with interest and agree with most of it. However, to say that private house builders have never built enough houses to meet demand for affordable homes, is not really true. In 1969 my wife and I bought our first home. At that time around 45 per cent of the population were home-owners.

By 2008, 68 per cent were. This was helped by the Right To Buy throughout the 1980s which did reduce the number of council houses for rent but, nonetheless, there were many millions of more people living in fully adequate houses in 2008 than in 1969.

Capping rents will not build more homes. As stated, the Government’s policy of supporting people having enough money to pay a deposit big enough to get a mortgage has led to house prices rising to a point where things are back to square one. Whatever is said about builders, the 10 big house builders are in the market to make profits, with shareholders to please or the directors are in trouble. They are not going to build affordable homes when it is not profitable to do so.