Editor

Roger Louvet, in his letter ‘Higher wages would mean house price rise’ (Letters, 15 October), seems to suggest that increasing the wages of the proletariat would only benefit the bourgeoise by raising their property values.

He dismisses the UK model of encouraging private ownership and seems to favour the communist model where no private ownership of property is allowed. His vision of utopia is where we all live in state-owned housing and exist on the minimum wage! The residents of former East Germany and all the other countries of Eastern Europe may well disagree with this view.

Meanwhile in the real world the main factor in property prices is supply and demand - if demand for houses increases faster than supply, then house prices will increase. Nationally the answer is to build enough houses to satisfy demand while enabling would-be purchasers to earn sufficient salary to obtain a mortgage. In some regions of the UK this will require support from government in speeding up the planning process and in boosting the availability of low-deposit mortgages.

From a local point of view, I would suggest that Gwynedd residents, especially the young, would prefer the opportunity to access higher-paid employment in the region and buy their own homes, rather than living on minimum wage in rented accommodation.

John Rees Moss, Bala

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