No fat cats allowed

I was concerned to read your suggestion that Threshold Key Homes is housing "fat cats" ("Solicitors and PFI builders 'qualify as key workers'", 21 February, page 9).

The main aim of our scheme at Chelsea Bridge Wharf is to provide 112 conventional shared ownership homes for people who fall under the usual definition of key workers.

Because it is being developed with no public grant, we are subsidising these affordable homes by selling a further 54 homes at 90% of their market value. And with an expected market value of at least £200,000, these properties are obviously beyond the reach of traditional key workers.

Yet, rather than sell them on the open market to the highest bidders – who may be high paid city workers – we are offering them to people working in the retail, tourist and service industries, those working primarily for public service providers and voluntary public service workers.

We wouldn't see your example of an in-house solicitor earning "up to £36,000" as a "fat cat", but as someone who is important to London's public service provision, and who would struggle to buy on the open market when the gross annual income needed to raise a mortgage for an average London home is more than £55,000 (according to the London Housing Federation's Housing: No 1 for Londoners).

With so many new homes needed, we need to look at different ways of making affordable housing work.