Letter to the editor: Last week Boris Johnson visited the new development at Erith Park (New homes “incredible” value, January 7). This was supposed to be new housing for local people. This is so wrong.

The homes were built on the old Larner Road estate, which when we heard was a great idea, but it has turned out to be a complete farce and insult to people waiting to be housed.

Bexley has a long waiting list, or so I have been told, so it appears to me that an estate should have been built to address this.

However, the majority of the homes built are for shared ownership or outright buying.

A three-bedroom house is £240,000, and you have to be able to put a £12,000 deposit down.

The little actual social housing that is available has been offered to the original tenants of Larner Road, which is acceptable.

So, Bexley Council, has this flagship estate helped to shorten the waiting list? I fear not because, in my basic maths, the amount of social housing properties that were knocked down is much more than the social housing that has replaced it, and this has therefore reduced Bexley Council housing stock.

So all the local people that work in low-paid jobs – shop workers, cleaners, waitresses – have had their chance of a decent home become very difficult.

The low-paid working man with kids does not earn enough to get a mortgage, let alone save large amounts of money – and to many £12,000 is a large amount of money – and deserves a chance of a decent home, not to be told that sharing their bedroom with their two daughters is acceptable and will be that way for the foreseeable future because Bexley and the Tory Government do not care about the low paid.

And let us be fair, not everybody can get a university degree and a well-paid job, and without the low-paid, London would stop.

It is time we were treated with respect and not contempt, which is what is happening now.

ELAINE WILLIS, Bexley