I WAS sorry to see John Glen defending the Government’s policy to force independent charitable housing associations to sell their property under a new “right to buy” scheme (We need to deliver on housing promises – Journal, June 4). I can assure Mr Glen that this scheme will be wholly counter-productive in terms of increasing the supply of homes and that his hope of “like for like” replacements of the houses sold is unlikely to be achieved.

Housing associations, such as the one I chair, build small developments of houses for rent in villages to meet local needs.

These are often built on sites where this type of development is allowed as an exception to normal planning policy – on land provided by landowners at reduced cost. It is only through these mechanisms that we can deliver homes at a rent level that is affordable to local people.

If landowners think that the land they have donated will one day be sold at market levels they will no longer be prepared to sell at a reduced price.

If communities, and local planning authorities, think that the development they accepted as an “exception” is to be replaced by another “exception”, and so on, they will oppose that development.

Developments allowed on exception sites are subject to legal agreements that they be retained for affordable housing “in perpetuity”. Is the Government going to over-ride these legal agreements?

The “replacements” Mr Glen refers to are to be funded by the sale of council housing stock. The only stock owned by Wiltshire Council is the remnant of the old Salisbury District Council houses. Other council stock in the county was transferred to housing associations. The same is true in much of the rest of the country.

It is highly unlikely that there will be sufficient finance from this source to fund replacements – certainly not to replace both the lost council stock and that of housing associations.

The result of all this is that local people will be priced out of the villages of south Wiltshire with dire consequences for community life. Mr Glen should turn his attention to persuading Ministers of the folly of this policy and, if it goes ahead, the need for it to be dis-applied in rural areas such as the one he represents.

MIKE ASH Chairman Wiltshire Rural Housing Association Bishopstone