As a member of Arun District Council, the local planning authority, I have to reserve my judgement as to the merits of the town, but I would like to bring your readers' attention to a little-known fact.

In recent Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, a number of Labour MPs have asked similar questions regarding the lack of affordable housing being provided by Conservative local authorities in the south.

The PM has replied that only Labour councils can be trusted to build sufficient affordable housing, which is, frankly, hogwash.

Arun has a housing revenue account and 75 per cent of any money received from council house sales has to be passed to central government under pooling arrangements put in place by them.

This money (£3m per annum) is then used to build affordable houses in Labour heartlands like Liverpool or Hartlepool, thus depriving the hard-working council tax-payers of Arun of vital capital that could be used to build new affordable dwellings.

There is cross-party consensus in the council that Arun needs and wants to build new affordable dwellings, but needs the capital to do this.

The government can easily remedy the situation by giving us our money back.

The government should also define what it means by affordable.

I have an easy solution — if we say less than six times the average wage, then we have a local figure for local authorities, builders and registered state landlords to aim for.

Paul Dendle, Arun councillor for Arundel and cabinet member for central services and resources, Chestnut Cottage, Burpham

Editor's note: readers might be interested to learn that, far from being Labour heartlands, Liverpool has a Liberal Democrat-controlled city council, and in Hartlepool, Labour's majority is just one, the party having previously lost control for a few years earlier this century.

Election results (on Thursday, May 1) may change this again, of course.

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