Referring to Ryan Jennings' excellent article about homeless figures I find it shameful that despite Colchester being one of the more prosperous towns in the country that such a dire situation is allowed to exist with regards to the availability of council or housing association accommodation for those on low or no income.

No wonder Colchester is awash with homeless people sleeping rough on the streets.

I surmise from Tina Bourne’s comments that as Colchester’s councillor responsible for housing she feels limited by what she and I take it the council can do due to lack of funding.

Ironically what I don’t see is this situation being treated as a major issue by any of the major parties on our council.

I would probably expect the Tories to be relatively inert on the subject as lack of state housing funds landlords in the town.

But I would think that before councillor Tim Young in last week's Standard wants to raise the merits of the St Botolph’s Quarter redevelopment with reference to Rafael Vinoly and the Firstsite project (£28 million) he would, as a priority, want to first ensure the council's drive is to ensure the abysmal housing and homelessness situation is resolved.

Again, the Lib Dems are not exactly making themselves effectively heard on the subject either.

There are so many positive housing solutions the council could look at such as developing a council owned plot with high volume pre-fabricated modular buildings which are low cost but would offer a quick and reasonable standard of accommodation for the homeless and those on the waiting lists for homes.

It’s a disgrace the town is being developed with a massive urban sprawl of houses in the £200,000 to £300,000 price brackets yet the people that need help could never get near the cost of these properties or finding a deposit for them.

I’m sure the council's get-out clause will be it receives insufficient funds from central government to change the situation.

That draws the key attention to our MP Will Quince who is never shy of using the mechanism of publicity to highlight what he does for the town when it suits him.

He and the surrounding MPs seem conspicuous by there silence on what should ethically be something they could make a big difference to by lobbying their party in Parliament to free up funds to resolve homelessness in their constituencies.

Paul Absolon

Company director

Colchester