Ms Nneka Akwaeze uses your correspondence columns to draw attention to housing in Colindale.

Her vision is somewhat selective. For Ms Akwaeze to describe housing being built off Colindale Avenue in Beaufort Park and Grahame Park as “affordable” is absurd. Affordable for whom? The fantasy free-marketism that she promotes is beloved of this government and has destroyed lives with its impact on peoples’ ability to buy houses or even rent.

Those of us of a certain age know that when rent controls existed they helped ensure that ordinary people could rent properties. They were supported by all parties for a long time. If we were to reintroduce rent controls, this would depress the prices of homes for purchase as well. In the long-term this just has to happen.

Not only do we have a chronic housing crisis but the economic consequences of that crisis are disastrous. When money can be made more easily by buying and renting out housing than by investing in more useful manufacturing and services industries we all lose out. Almost no jobs are created (once the housing has been built), no more wealth is created and, importantly, the public purse does not benefit.

When Ms Akwaeze stood as one of the Conservative candidates in the council elections last year she let it be known that she lived in the ward. In her letter it is merely stated that her address was supplied. All correspondents should have the right to privacy and quite rightly so, but if Ms Akwaeze was happy enough to be identified as a Colindale resident last year, why is she no longer at least able to identify herself as, say, a ‘Colindale resident’?

David Beere

Colin Crescent, Colindale