SIR - I was amused to see two letters in the Craven Herald, November 8, telling readers what my views were on housing, on the EU and on immigration. Since it is generally better if people try and express their own views, rather than confuse and distort the views of others, I thought your readers might prefer to know what I actually do think on these issues.

On housing I remain firmly of the view that our central problem is that bad government policy is allowing huge numbers of buildings in inner city areas like Bradford to decay whilst encouraging developers to build on greenfield sites around towns like Skipton. I think we could have met any increased housing need via renovation and redevelopment if we had focused on providing the smaller and more affordable homes that the majority of people need. Instead the government has decided to squander a further £10,000,000,000 on a “Help to Buy” scheme that has simply put up house prices and put money into the pockets of house builders like Persimmon.

As for the EU, I expressed the view during the referendum campaign that the UK would either end up obeying rules that it no longer helped to make or would crash out with a damaging no deal. I did, however, recognise that the winners of the referendum had won the chance to try and deliver on their promises.

Since they have completely failed to do that, I believe that we should have every bit as much opportunity to express our views on whether we like the final deal as we were given to say whether we liked false promises. If any of us had ordered a delivery of goods two years in advance and what arrived was completely different from what we were told to expect then we would simply cancel the order and send it back.

I continue to worry for our farmers if they can’t easily sell to the EU and are forced to sell on world markets in competition with chemical soaked mass-produced US beef and with New Zealand lamb. I can’t see how it can possibly be good for Britain to make access to our biggest market more difficult for our businesses. And I think that it is entirely rational to believe in the necessity of some border controls but also to believe that overall the people in this country have gained enormously from the freedom of movement of goods, services and people across Europe that emerged from the ruins of the two world wars that narrow-minded nationalism foisted on us.

At the current moment we have doctors in our local community who have worked for our NHS for decades and have brought their children up in our schools yet because they helpfully came here under freedom of movement they have been made to wait for over two years to know where they stand whilst they have been treated as a bargaining tool in negotiations.

When central government policies become so very misguided it is a honour to be accused of being something of a liberal.

Andy Brown

Green Party

Main Street

Cononley