Camden New Journal - Letters: Build new housing

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 30 August 2007

Let council build new housing

• FURTHER to your coverage of the Brill Place development, I am calling for the Labour government to change planning rules, to allow Camden Council to build new council homes at Brill Place.
This is in response to the statement by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that the decision as to the use of the site behind the British Library was in the hands of Camden.
If Gordon Brown is serious about improving housing in Camden, he could start by allowing our council to build homes. Because of the Labour government’s rules, the council is not allowed to build its own housing, but has to look to housing associations or private developers to try and fill the desperate housing need in our area.
This is on top of the refusal of the Labour government to hand over the £283 million it promised for essential repairs for existing council tenants.
It makes no sense that there are different rules for housing associations and private developers for new building projects.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues on the council are keen that the land is used for housing, but the government’s rules stop the council working on its own housing building projects.
Gordon Brown’s new housing green paper says that local authorities should be allowed to work in partnership with housing associations, but this Labour government is obsessed with control from the centre and will not allow local authorities to build themselves.
JO SHAW
Lib Dem Parliamentary
Spokesperson for Holborn and St Pancras

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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