• JULIUS Hogben’s excellent letter (Bleak community outlook, January 27) joins the three dealing with facets of social housing published in the West End Extra.

It is very difficult to disagree with the Hogben letter concerning the efforts of the Shirley Porter regime of the 1980s in Westminster to change voting patterns in the borough during the “homes-for-votes” policy.

As Mr Hogben says, something very similar is now occurring across London with government policy forcing councils of all persuasions down the path of joining forces with commercial speculators who have only the bottom line in mind, and which has another and more hidden policy behind it, namely that of voting patterns being changed across London.

But, then, what else do we expect from a party that when having a majority in parliament has a long history of enacting policies that intentionally would alter electoral patterns in a manner that would be readily identified by 19th-century “rotten borough” landlords.

It is plainly too soon to expect a response to the Hogben letter by Westminster councillors. But then weeks have elapsed since the letters of Alida Baxter (We’re the forgotten people here – Soho, January 13, plus Aaron Little’s on the Westminster Residents’ Panel in the same issue).

And another week has gone by since my previous letter appeared (We need a commitment to refuse more luxury housing, January 20).

It has become increasingly obvious that what lies behind the arbitrary decision to close down the residents’ panel is the removal of the only voice independent of the council and CityWest Homes in which virtually all and any form of housing could be discussed in open forum.

Therefore Mr Little’s letter in which he says the residents’ panel will be continuing and that there will be an open invitation for all former attendees of its meetings to attend future meetings, is good news.

H BOURNE
SW1