Property prices are the real problem
Fiona Millar is right to link children’s success at school with good housing (Opinion, January 18) but she tends to imply that children of owner-occupiers invariably do better. Research by Roger Burrows for the Joseph Rowntree Trust in 2003 found that “50% of people living in poverty are either outright owners (18%) or are paying a mortgage (32%).”
So much does this finding fly in the face of received wisdom, (that the housing market works for the common good),that people are apt to ignore their own experience: that young households often struggle with high mortgage payments, which, along with high rents might indicate that it is high property prices that are the basis of the problem.
David Reed
Labour Land Campaign