Market forces out children

Published: 6 May, 2010

• FROM my window, four flights up, I saw the sad bank holiday sight of a family with two children go to the gate of the small play area in the car park in the centre of our housing association block of flats only to find it locked at midday on bank holiday Monday.
It has been locked for weeks, if not months because it was being used as an exercise place for dogs, often uncontrollable ones.
I phoned up our landlord to say that dogs were being allowed to run free in this children’s area. I was hoping that dog-owners would be contacted and told to stop using the area. But whereas tenants are not allowed dogs, owner occupiers are. Now the landlord is saying that as long as there were no complaints dogs would be allowed in our blocks.
So the sell-off of flats continues and the lives of children are changed thanks to market forces.
JOHN MORRIS
Address supplied