Like other local residents, I submitted responses to various sections of the latest version of Kensington & Chelsea's 'Core Strategy', during the consultation which closed last week.

The parts of the document that dealt with housing caused me great concern.

The document, which is called Towards Preferred Options states: "The council believes that mixed neighbourhoods are preferable to mono-tenure communities, and ensuring they are created is a major priority."

Unfortunately, there is very little evidence to support this statement. When new developments are built in the affluent parts of the borough, the affordable housing very rarely gets put on site.

This leads to the creation of ghettoised communities rather than mixed ones.

The council's laudable stated aim within the document of "reducing the current broad spatial segregation between the north and south of the borough" is not going to be possible without a root and branch review of planning policy in this borough, and crucially, how that policy is implemented.

Too often, the prof it margins of property developers are put ahead of the demand for affordable housing on-site.

Reading the council's views on this in the document are like reading the views of an entirely different administration. The aims for the future bear no resemblance whatsoever to the behaviour of even the very recent past.

In a borough as in-demand and blessed with such natural and architectural beauty as ours, developers would not be scared off from investing here under a firmer planning policy of putting affordable housing on-site - and if it really does has to be off site, then at least it should be very near, within the same ward.

The truth is that whenever there are conflicting needs for space in this borough, the on-site affordable housing is always sacrificed - pretty much without exception.

Affordable housing needs to stop being the afterthought and start being one of the very primary considerations in the minds of councillors and developers alike, otherwise the council's new strategy document is not worth the paper it's printed on.

The council has the power to undertake that shift in emphasis, unfortunately nothing it has done so far suggests that is going to happen.

Robin Meltzer

Chair Kensington and Chelsea Liberal Democrats