The solution to London’s problems does not lie in London but in the rest of the UK (Helen Lewis, Opinion, 28 January). The deindustrialisation of Britain, which started in the 1980s, saw the decline and even destruction of industries employing thousands of people – shipbuilding, mining, steel-making, ceramics – mainly based in the Midlands and North. Many took Norman Tebbit’s advice to “get on your bike” and look for work. They came to London and the price of houses rose, exacerbated by the abolition of controls on capital movements, which has seen overseas money flow into the London property market and the growth of buy to let. With house prices and rents out of the reach of most, workers have to commute into the centre of London. Thus we are told that, inexorably, after Crossrail will come Crossrails 2 and 3, and more houses must be built, even while thousands of houses lie empty elsewhere in the UK. This is a vicious circle. People should not have to spend hours and a fortune commuting. Britain needs a plan to reindustrialise and put jobs back where people live.
Richard Ross
London
