ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

In general, I agree with Chris Holmes that "The housing targets don't even begin to reduce the backlog" (9 January, page 16).

But I would suggest that the priority has to be to stem the drift from Northern cities.

To do that, government and campaigners need to address the fundamental problems of underemployment, lack of jobs and low wages. ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ bigger roads attracts more cars; so building more housing attracts more people, especially if the homes are built in areas where employment opportunities continue to grow.

The government, housing bodies and campaigners need to be setting up new businesses and/or moving existing businesses to the North, as suggested by Terry Jones ("Devolve seats of power", 9 January, page 18). The government wants us to be an "e-society". Let it show how this works by moving more departments out of London.

Every new department of government should automatically be set up in the North. There is no excuse for doing otherwise.

Land is cheap here; housing is plentiful; there is a pool of labour to draw upon and modern communications technology would allow staff to communicate instantly with colleagues – wherever in the world they are.