SIR - 10,000 homes, formerly owned by the MoD, are currently empty according to the government's public accounts committee. These homes are part of the 55,000 homes - a few of which I lived in whilst growing up - the Tory government sold and is now leasing back from Annington's private equity fund. It not only looks like, surprise, surprise, Annington will raise the rents (by about £84 million a year) but the committee concluded that the sell-off will eventually cost the taxpayer a cool £5 billion. I relay this information to show that the housing crisis is not simply to do with a growing population, born here or elsewhere, but a purposeful and massively wasteful project to privatise government-owned housing and to give developers and investors control of the market. It is wasteful for the government and the taxpayer but hugely profitable for companies like Annington, who have been allowed to feed off the public purse with little or no regulation or accountability.

A similar milking of the system under the rubric of housing and/or leisure is played out in the Dales, with the district council apparently oblivious to the ravages to the countryside and villages.

A similar economics of privileging private gain at the expense of public good is, to be specific, looming with the proposal to pave over the Hellifield flashes, which is and should remain a wild-life preserve rather than an ill-conceived investment opportunity.

A similar profiteering by, in this instance, private house/hotel/chalet builders is at work, while the public, you and I, will be left with the bill: traffic clogged roads, pollution, sewage, loss of landscape and habitats, and a strain on public services.

Save the Hellifield flashes and save money as well as tranquility.

Dr Bruce McLeod

Otterburn