I am writing to express my concern over the council housing situation in Royston.I am a Roystonian born and bred and proud of it, and have always tried to instil this local patriotism into my children; we support local clubs and try whenever possible to

I am writing to express my concern over the council housing situation in Royston.

I am a Roystonian born and bred and proud of it, and have always tried to instil this local patriotism into my children; we support local clubs and try whenever possible to use local amenities. I have a large family (five children) and as they are getting bigger we have found our three-bed house a tad cramped to say the least.

We have always been on the local council list and are now at a stage where we cannot bid on any properties smaller than four bedrooms as, according to North Herts Homes and the district council, the new regulations on the amount of children room sharing prohibit them offering smaller properties. A property has recently became vacant in Royston that was previously a 3 bedroom property. As far as we were aware this was our minimum size to bid on and when I rang the district council and North Herts Homes I was told that it was too small for our needs.

We have a 21-year old sharing with five, seven, and nine year old, and our only 15 year old daughter has her own room. The district council were the authority that put us into our present home through Aldwyck Housing. The property in question has an out building that could easily be converted into a small annex, as has been done in other properties in the street, and even still has a water supply and electricity plumbed in. Also the smallest room downstairs has had an archway knocked through to open the room up into one large area, whilst still retaining the access through the kitchen. This would be such an easy job to re-fill this hole and so return the property to its original spec as a 3 bed with two separate downstairs rooms. I thought that when a resident vacated a property it had to be returned to its original specification. If this was the case then we could have bid on this property.

We have tried constantly to get people to house swap and have chased every available home that came up in the Royston area - why can't common sense come into play and the council and North Herts Homes sort out this property to supply what is, and always will be, a chronic shortage in larger size family homes. I always thought that the adage local homes for local people included all local people, not just the ones who fit neatly into whatever box is available at the time. Is it too much to ask to be able to still bring my family up where I was or should all old values become a thing of the past as quickly as a four bed property in Royston?

Kevin Green

Hardy Drive

Royston