Sir, – As readers may know, Hambleton District Council has a district-wide policy for the numbers of houses it thinks is needed across the district for the next 15 or so years.

In order to arrive at this figure the council considered the amount of “affordable housing”

that would be required over this period.

This is something very important for them to sort out and we too are well aware of the need for such housing and want to see them built.

But there seems to be a serious mismatch between what the council is proposing to build and what the actual district need may be and how it may be met.

Our members have asked the council and also Broadacres Housing Association how they arrived at the figures they used for this but have had no satisfactory answer.

We note that relatively recently the numbers for the Thirsk/Sowerby area was identified as being about 265 affordable houses. The proposed number has since been added to significantly, becoming around 400 on the single Sowerby Gateway scheme.

Now how does that happen?

Especially when we are told that there is a new ‘choice’ scheme in operation which has meant they no longer keep a waiting list.

For this reason they say they cannot tell us what the need may be, yet they were able to do so to help create the inflated district-wide figures?

What I find particularly galling is the council saying that on the one hand the new houses will meet local need, and on the other they are advertising for takers around the country.

Broadacres advertised these affordable houses at the NEC in Birmingham last year and apparently have also done so in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.

This is hardly planning enough houses for recognised local need.

Do they actually intend to flood all three schemes (at Northallerton, Stokesley and Thirsk/Sowerby) with a great many people from beyond the district borders?

Despite this concern, should our own young people have some hope that there will be something for them? Don’t hold your breath.

There is still a points system in place and you only get a choice if you are eligible.

It may well be eminently worthy to import people who are in a worse situation than our own people, but hardly what voters in the district might expect, is it?

Nor will it meet the need for homes where they want to live if they are one of the lucky ones anyway.

The law of unintended consequence tells you that our young people will very likely miss out again.

Added to this is the nonsense of expecting large numbers of people to move into affordable houses where there is very little work available to them and no realistic prospect of it.

We are in the middle of nowhere and who can afford to commute?

As has been pointed out recently, a bit more imagination is needed and recognition of the changes taking place that may well lead to many already- built homes becoming available at Topcliffe, not very far away, and Dishforth too.

JOE SALMON Chairman, STUFF Sowerby and Thirsk United for the Future.