Big and bold solutions are needed to provide 24,000 more homes

Big problems require bold solutions. There are few bigger challenges facing our city than housing.

To build up to 24,000 extra homes in the next 15 years requires more than piecemeal, small-scale developments squeezed into myriad odd parcels of land.

Inevitably, the angry uncertainty of residents and the opportunistic bluster of politicians will almost certainly be counter-productive.

Leadership often lives between a rock and a hard place. And that is where our elected representatives find themselves. That is why we elected them.

We can either build up - or build out, into the urban fringe. Or both.

We can do nothing about having the sea to the south. We can, however, ask serious questions of the South Downs National Park: Are the boundaries immovably correct - straddling as they do the A27? Why do we not put more housing on the Sussex University campus? Why not build an estate between Falmer and Woodingdean?

Of course, we can stick our heads in the sand. We can recognise the need for piecemeal developments, so long as they are not in our backyard. We can argue for more use of brownfield sites, but tacitly accept they will make a minuscule contribution.

Or we can grasp the nettle.

Big problems require big solutions. Not small minds.