According to the article ( http://tinyurl.com/357w7m), 4,756 apartments are to come onto the city centre market in the next 12 months, and a further 3,653 in the pipeline.

With the Capital of Culture celebrations just eight months away, rents in the city are going through the roof, and over 20,000 people were on the council's housing list as of last April ( http://tinyurl.com/2bh86w).

However, the council are refusing to build affordable housing, and are creating a market which is thriving on luxury housing and speculation.

Steven Beilin, managing director of BE Property Services, told the Post that:

He said: “There are around 27,000 new-build apartments in Liverpool and around 15,000 of these are not occupied. There are more and more being built and I estimate that we are going to end up with around 25,000 unoccupied flats in the city centre."

I'm not the world's greatest mathematician, but the sums seem quite simple. 25,000 nice new empty flats. About 20,000 of us waiting for affordable housing, plus all the builders working on them, many of whom are from Eastern Europe.

What's standing in the way of this common sense solution? Oh yeah, capitalism.