What splendid, almost saintly, sentiments Oxford city councillor Mick McAndrews expresses on low-cost housing (Oxford Mail, January 6).

Perhaps he might like to study the history of social housing in this country before blasting off at the people who will have to pay for it. Or, as John Prescott has already said, do homeowners and taxpayers have no right to object when someone builds a potential slum next to their home?

Just what is low-cost housing?

The city council is already owed nearly £16m in rents and council taxes so, once the new tenants are safely ensconced in their shiny new low-cost homes, where is the money coming from to maintain them, and who will pay the rents?

Council housing started in the late 1940s and it took about five years for tenants to turn them into slums with huge backlogs of rent and rates. It seems that the new tenants didn't want them or the rents that went with them.

The 1960s saw the building of huge tower blocks, now acknowledged as a massive social mistake, but it was cheap, so it was the "answer" to cheap housing.

Never fear, Mr McAndrews, help is at hand.

Mr Prescott has said he intends to take planning decisions away from local authorities and allow centrally-controlled bodies to decide who can build what and where. I think they call it democratic government.

Meanwhile, I suppose the rest of us who have worked and paid our bills, can, in the eyes of Mr McAndrews and his friends, keep paying.

BRIAN WYLIE

Thames Avenue

Bicester