YP Letters: Council housing's history of towering failure

Will lessons be learned from the Grenfell Tower fire?

SO Coun Martin Tett thinks the answer to the housing crisis is to allow councils to borrow money so they can build us out of trouble (The Yorkshire Post, November 20).

Is he really serious? Has he forgotten the previous council house building fiascos many of which still exist blighting cities, towns and villages with their poor design and architecture?

Many were so bad that they have already been demolished with great waste of resources.

Some contained dire errors – has he forgotten the tragedies at Ronan Point and, more recently, Grenfell Tower? This is local authority housebuilding in reality.

The housing crisis is complex, but successive governments have, at the root of their policies, the monetisation of housing in pursuit of some ideological dream of mass ownership. They have precipitated the rise of volume housebuilders who have often delivered poor products and poor value. They have even resorted to appointing the likes of Kirstie Allsopp to promote these.

This has filtered down to the provision of low cost housing which has been subsidised with indifferent results. There is no doubt in my mind that the last thing we need is local government borrowing money.