Taxation should help us to build

The not-for-profit housing society that I chair offers good-quality accommodation at rents below the market rates prevailing in the areas in which our properties are located.

This is made possible by tight financial management and the simple process of recycling the margin between income and expenditure into ongoing maintenance and expansion.

Probus Women's Housing Society was founded to provide accommodation for working women at a time when women were denied access to many areas of employment and were perceived to be a source of cheap labour and the accommodation they could afford was seriously substandard.

More than 50 years on, the society has changed with the times and we are now looking to carry our founding philosophy into the provision of housing for key workers. Our definition of "key workers" includes those employed by businesses whose existence ensures the economic health and well-being of a community is viable and sustainable.

Yet we have chosen not to go down the route of becoming a registered social landlord. We do not offer social housing, we offer affordable housing for people who work.

There is an economic logic in enabling people to live near their place of work while paying a realistic rent, not inflated by commercial margins, providing them with an opportunity to save.

Exploration of tax favourable to encourage the building of property for rent would be a cost-effective way of encouraging expansion for not-for-profit organisations like ourselves, as would the endorsement of a planning policy that views affordable homes as offering a comparable community benefit to social housing.

In partnership with developers, smaller organisations could easily mop up the section 106 planning gain obligation, or its successor.