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We must not allow sale of homes to highest bidder
• I WANT to clarify what happened at the Labour Party conference and what will happen now (Minister promises talks on repairs and decent homes, September 25).
Delegates from constituency parties and trade unions were asked to vote on a report about options for council and social housing. This report came about in part due to the success of our delegates at last year’s conference. The report dealt with myriad issues relating to affordable housing, including allowing councils to build new homes. It was and still is the view of Holborn and St Pancras Labour Party that this paper doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t allow councils direct access to funds, either through grants or borrowing, to repair homes.
This is what I said in the speech to conference responding to the report. However, it became clear that the commitment to allow councils to build new homes was popular nationally and, in particular, with the unions who stand to secure jobs at an uncertain time for their members, and that to reject the paper would be futile since it would be voted through anyway.
We used our opposition to the paper, not to “whimp out”, but to negotiate with national politicians to look for alternative solutions. With over 12,000 families on the waiting list and 2,000 living in over-crowded accommodation, the Lib Dems proposal to sell our housing to the highest bidder shouldn’t be an option. Through these negotiations we have secured a commitment from housing minister Caroline Flint to look specifically at the issues Camden faces and consider alternatives to the Lib Dems’ housing sell-off proposal.
SARAH HAYWARD
Holborn & St Pancras Labour Party
Bleak future for tenants
• EVEN if the government wished to dump their policy of the past 10 years and engage in a programme of large-scale council house building they could not do so for purely practical reasons.
Nothing is certain in politics, but we are almost certain to have a Tory government by May 2010, the last date on which the general election can be held. That gives at most 19 months for Brown government to act.
It is simply not long enough to get large-scale building contracts signed and planning permission given.
But even if Labour was re-elected or a Tory government embraced the policy, it could not be implemented because the government finances are in a parlous state and rapidly deteriorating. They had to borrow £28.2billion in the first five months of the year despite the Treasury estimates of borrowing for the entire year being only £43billion. In August alone £10.4billion was borrowed. We are probably looking at government borrowing for the year 2008/09 of £60-70billion.
This colossal shortfall in revenues means that there is no money for large-scale council house building and renovation in the foreseeable future.
The only way any government could finance such a programme in present circumstances would be through Private Finance Initiative deals where the private contractor bears the initial cost and the taxpayer repays them over a long period. However, with the credit crunch showing no signs of abating, such deals would be impossible to strike because the private contractors would not be able to raise the massive finance required.
However, all of that is academic because the Tories are almost certain to win with a comfortable majority and they have shown no inclination to engage in council house building or renovation. Indeed, they have given every indication that they are still locked in a Thatcherite mindset and have stated that if they form a government we shall see more privatisation through the contracting out public services and assets. That will doubtless include council housing, which I suspect they will force by law into vehicles such as housing associations and Almos.
A bleak future not only for existing council tenants but also for the increasing numbers who require council housing because the cost of private housing, either owned or rented, is simply beyond their reach.
Robert Henderson
Chalton Street, NW1
We’ll press ministers
• I’M delighted to hear the current Labour housing minister “promises talks on repairs and decent homes” (September 25) but, of course, talks don’t fix our homes.
And, as your readers will be aware, it took our leader four months of daily chasing to get to meet the minister last year, a meeting which delivered nothing in terms of cash, just like her previous meetings with our Labour predecessors.
Whether Caroline Flint will stay with housing long enough to honour her promise we shall see. The previous minister, Yvette Cooper, didn’t stay long and there was little reference to council housing in the Prime Minister’s speech.
On the other hand, as I have said, I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues are completely committed to a strong and positive role for council housing in Camden, so I quite agree with Alan Walter’s comment that “warm words” are not enough (“it’s time to see the colour of the government’s money”).
Indeed our leader wrote to the minister last week revisiting the issue of capital funding for our estates and street properties and, more immediately, taking this Labour government to task for cuts proposed for Camden next year: requiring us to increase rents by nearly 8 per cent, and to cut £3million of services.
At a time of real personal hardship for many tenants this is unacceptable, and I call on everyone to fight it.
So I welcome residents’ pressure on government to understand that Camden is a special case.
It’s a disgrace that in 2008 nearly 50,000 Camden residents wake up every day in council homes below the government’s minimum standard, while neighbouring boroughs have modernised all their homes already.
It’s a disgrace that I am committed to tackling directly, whether this government shows it cares about Camden’s tenants or not.
That’s why we agreed our Investing in Camden’s Homes programme last year, which most tenants who responded to agreed with; a way forward which is now approved by government, as I have announced.
That’s why, while we continue to pressure ministers, we’re getting started this month on fixing old wiring, and kitchens and bathrooms that are beyond repair, to get our tenants the homes they deserve, honouring our promise.
CLLR CHRIS NAYLOR
Executive Member for Homes and Housing Strategy
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