The ignorance of S. Thomas (Journal Postbag, December 13) astounds me.

He or she claims that the number of retirement apartments being built in Salisbury is turning the city centre into a pensioners' ghetto and asks: "Is no thought being given to young people's housing needs, with the bias always towards the older generation?".

What the writer should know is that property developers are not, and never have been, interested in meeting people's housing needs.

Their sole aim is to make as much money as possible.

The boom in retirement properties is designed to cash in on the growing number of elderly people who want to down-size from their family homes and buy something smaller which is within easier reach of shops and doctors' surgeries.

In the 1980s it was the high-spending and high-earning YUPPIES in their twenties and thirties who were being targeted by the house-building companies.

No doubt the pendulum will swing again in a few years.

But no single generation is to blame.

The only solution is to take the provision of housing for purchase or rent out of the hands of private developers and put it in the hands of a publicly-accountable national development agency who will build on the basis of need, not greed.

Is there any political party willing to take such a bold and necessary step?

Chloe De Champneys,

Laverstock.