THE letter from your anonymous correspondent (Daily Echo May 31) really surprises me as it should be clear to anybody following the priorities of this administration on Bournemouth Council that we are following exactly the same agenda.

Since I became Leader of the Council early last year we have ensured that housing has remained top of our agenda in Bournemouth and that people with a local connection will be treated as a priority.

We have been building council housing again in Bournemouth since 2008, one of only a few Unitary Councils in the south to be doing so, and we have plans for many more homes over the next couple of years. In addition, in our Budget in February we launched the most ambitious plans for financing the buying in of HMOs and private sector housing not up to an acceptable standard that the town has ever seen.

Perhaps, more importantly, we are determined to ensure that we promote the opportunity for first time buyers to gain a foothold on the housing ladder. In practical terms that means that we are building housing that is affordable for first time buyers and that we have put substantial funding in place from the Council’s reserves to help finance mortgages for these buyers.

Bournemouth Council is leading the debate on these important issues and if your correspondent would like to help me to get the message out then I would ask them to contact me so that we can work together on this priority for our local community. Our economic future will be much brighter far more quickly here in Bournemouth if we are able to make these groundbreaking initiatives successful as soon as possible.

CLLR JOHN BEESLEY, Leader of Bournemouth council