MADAM – I have huge respect for Cllr Mattie Ross, and the important and committed work she has put in with others over the years to manage Stroud district’s housing issues.

I cannot, however, let the statements she has made, with Cllr Wheeler, (SNJ Aug 6) go unqualified.

Yes, there is a shortfall in the number of affordable houses being built, but to state that figure is in the order of 500 per annum is completely misleading without context.

The figure is taken from a recent countywide report looking at the problem, which trawled opinion and information over a wide range of assessments, including questions to estate agents.

The report’s authors acknowledge that their figures are an aspiration, not expected to be delivered in practice.

One might ask, if there is such an enormous shortfall in affordable provision, why are the streets of Stroud not lined with people living in cardboard boxes?

The answer of course is far more complex than the article suggests, with private rental accommodation providing a large part of the answer, assisted by State funded housing benefit payments.

I do not willingly support the principal of a buy-to-let market, but while interest rates continue to stay low, investors will look to other means for a return on their capital, including competing for certain types of housing, and therefore away from low cost purchasers.

More to the point, the council is currently considering its response to the planning inspector’s comments following the examination in public of the draft local plan.

The inspector had access to the report from which the shortfall figure of 500 affordable houses per year has been plucked.

The council’s formal reaction, to the inspector’s comment, has been to set up an a-political cross party planning strategy panel to consider the issues, including housing numbers through the plan period.

For labour councillors to float this level of unqualified and politically biased expectation into the public domain is, in my view, completely unhelpful to the debate and potentially very dangerous indeed to the final number.

The panel will advise council in due course of what level of housing provision it thinks there should be, and council can then take properly reasoned decisions into its response to the inspectors criticisms.

Cllr Nick Hurst

Stroud district councillor (Con) for Minchinhampton