Our housing in Kingston is at breaking point.

Last year, according to Rightmove, the average price of a home in the borough was £554,178, up 20 per cent on 2012.

Who can keep pace with these astronomic levels, when salaries only increase by between one and two per cent a year?

Figures from Shelter, the Homeless charity, show that, since 2011 in Kingston, 77 council homes were sold off and none of them were replaced, while the social housing waiting list has 6,436 people on it. Housing officers tell me that the rent cap is forcing them to relocate residents outside the borough.

In the three years up to 2013, less than 200 affordable homes were built in Kingston, not even 10 per cent of the council’s own target.

In 2013-14, the target was a mere 84 homes. How can the council hope to achieve its targets when it approves developments such as the one by Berkeley on the old gas works at Sury Basin, where only 50 out of the 315 homes are affordable?

Exactly the same looks to be happening with the Eden Quarter development on the old post office site.

I urge councillors to stop accepting poorly designed, exceedingly tall, overly dense schemes with unduly small rooms, featuring a derisory amount of homes that people can actually afford.

ANDREE FRIEZE
Green Party