Barnet made the local and national headlines last week and for all the wrong reasons (‘Tenants crawl to reach rooms’, Times Series, August 28).

A landlord in Hendon was brought to justice by the authorities for letting out a rented room that could only be reached via a staircase with a head height as low as 2ft 3inches (69cm).

One is very glad that action has been taken but this scandal just shows how the private rental market is badly broken.

Reports invariably show that homes in the private rental sector are worse than homes in either council housing or private ownership.

The ‘market’ in housing encourages ‘landlordism’. It did not come about by accident. It grew because of a series of deeply political government measures. The Thatcher government ’privatised’ council homes through the so-called right to buy rules, the Housing Act of 1988 scrapped most rent controls and protection and John Major brought in assured short-hold tenancies and the growth of buy-to let mortgages. The current government’s legislation requires councils to put homeless people in the private rental sector, a policy which Barnet Borough Council endorses.

Home ownership is down to the level it was in 1987. Thirty years of free market policies have made matters worse. Ed Miliband has said that Labour would take action over landlords and improve tenants’ rights.

Councillor Kath McGuirk (Labour, West Finchley) is right to say in your newspaper that local people are being priced out of the housing market. Barnet Council needs to urgently review its complacent housing policy. Some local authorities do more in this area than others. It is high time Barnet is, in the current ‘jargon’, much more pro-active.

David Beere

Colin Crescent, Colindale