I would like to defend the right of workers of the South West to be able to access homes for their families. In your editorial (WMN Nov 9) you accused the GMB Union of "adherence to socialist policies that many thought has disappeared from mainstream politics" and that compulsory purchase of holiday homes was "wrong, wrong,wrong". The reason you give for such an idea is that the rich create the wealth and they can spend it how they like and this will create more wealth. This "trickle down"' wealth theory has been thoroughly discredited and a cursory glance of statistics will show that the opposite effect has been happening. There has been a steady transfer of wealth from the workers to the rich for the past few decades. It is certainly a socialist opinion that it is the workers who create wealth which is then sequestrated by the rich.
With median earnings in the South West being £19,500 per year, half of people's incomes now goes on rent. They rent because house prices are 11.5 times the average wage in urban areas and 13 times in rural ones. There are 10,000 holiday homes in Cornwall alone, local people cannot afford to buy in the South Hams and with average wages of £16,000 in Torbay the extent of the crisis is laid bare.
What then is the solution? We need a proper programme of house building – not for profit but for local need. There are thousands of construction workers languishing on the dole wasting skills and thousands of young people waiting to be trained and help build homes which are a basic need in life. Many of the few homes that are being built are used as investment vehicles pushing up prices. Those who object to green-site development may see the taking of holiday and second homes into public ownership as part of the solution. Working hard on South West wages does not price you into this inflated price market. Shelter is a basic need and a right. The challenge for those who support capitalism is to show what is going wrong.
Local democratic planning of the use of resources ought not be confused by bureaucratic state planning employed by Stalin, a mortal enemy of my views – he was not a socialist!