Tackling the housing crisis

From The Rt Hon. John Prescott, MP Sir: Rod Liddle ('More destructive than the Luftwaffe', 3 April) told only part of the story on housing in this case.

More than half the UK's 700,000 empty properties are houses that are either being sold or are waiting for people to move in. As for the other 300,000 or so privately owned properties, we've introduced VAT incentives to bring them back into use and we're removing the perverse incentive in the council tax system which leaves homes empty. We are also giving powers to local councils to renovate empty properties to a habitable standard. Owners would not have to pay for this. By letting them out, councils generate income to pay off renovation costs. Once repaid, the property is handed back to the owner in good condition.

This alone won't satisfy our housing need. We do need to build new homes. But new-build doesn't mean using up valuable green space. In fact we've added some 25,000 hectares to the greenbelt since 1997, and there's a further 12,000 hectares to come. Over the same period, the amount of development on brownfield land has risen. Now 64 per cent of all new building is on brownfield land.

We're helping our key workers find homes — Rod disagrees. Investment of £1 billion is helping our teachers and nurses. More than £2 million will be spent in Wiltshire — Rod's neck of the woods. If he spent less time writing about key workers and more time talking to them, he would realise that this is necessary.

Finally, Rod asks, 'Why don't we renovate our existing housing stock?' The fact is that since 1997 we have reduced the number of non-decent homes by nearly a million. In the next three years we are investing nearly £3 billion to ensure that all social housing is decent.

It's Rod's style to ignore the facts. But he really should do a little research before putting pen to paper — like giving us a ring.

John Prescott

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, London SW1

From Nick Reeves

Sir: Rod Liddle is absolutely right. This government's outmoded 'predict and provide

approach to meeting housing needs is quite bizarre, especially in view of the fact that this is all part of John Prescott's flagship Sustainable Communities Plan, and that there is an existing stock of property going begging.

Next time Rod Liddle strolls down Doughty Street from The Spectator office to the King's Arms pub, he might care to call into my office in nearby John Street. I would be able to explain that one of the other major failings of this government's 'predict and provide' policy is that there probably won't be enough water to supply the unlucky owners of these new homes. The effects of climate change, creeping urbanisation and an aging investmentstarved infrastructure means that there is now less available water per head of population in the south-east of England than there is in Syria. How sustainable is that?

Nick Reeves

Executive Director, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, London WC1

From Dr David James Sir: Rod Liddle's vision of a future England resembling nothing more than a suburban hellhole populated with tracksuited chavs is, tragically, entirely credible. Philip Larkin — ever the realist — got it almost right in his poem 'Going, going':

And that will be England gone, The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, The guildhalls. the carved choirs. There'll be books; it will linger on In galleries; but all that remains For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant. This won't he, most likely; but greed And garbage are too thick-strewn To be swept up now, or invent Excuses that make them all needs. I just think it will happen, soon.

Larkin's only mistake was not to predict that a government might intend this destruction to happen. Our government actually funds it. Fuelled by a liberal selfloathing, it will not be happy until it looks around and sees that everything that once made this country such a desirable place to live has gone for good. It is a tragedy.

David James

Hertford