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It’s the building economy, stupid – so start investing there!
WHILE the Lib-Dem leadership of Camden Council make sympathetic noises about the need to build council houses, their words contradict their deeds.
Quite rightly, they blame central government for financially squeezing them so tight that it is impossible to embark on a programme, however small, even if they wanted to.
But the lack of good quality social housing remains one of the most acute problems facing the borough.
It is inescapable.
The Lib-Dems and their Tory partners should be aware of this.
That’s why it is so hypocritical of them to point fingers at Whitehall while auctioning off some of their properties.
One of them is actually a flat in a council block.
The coalition may argue it would cost too much to bring these properties up to a good enough standard to make them habitable.
This is a very moot point.
In the late 1970s the Tory administration at the Greater London Council introduced a very successful Homesteading programme, where tenants were encouraged to move in and renovate dilapidated properties themselves.
The people of Camden would be better served if the coalition were to embark on a similar programme.
However, the coalition, driven by the urge to freeze the Council Tax rate – and thus win the next election – appear to be obsessed with the need to Sell, Sell, Sell!
Here – as with their academy programme – they appear to be at variance with national Lib-Dem policy.
Their “chancellor” Vince Cable appears to favour some kind of a council housing programme.
There is little doubt this would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. And it bristles with attractive points – it will boost private housing companies, such as Barratts, as well as the steel and plastics industries, with the bonus that it could be quickly introduced on sites where planning permission already exists.
There are virtually ready-made sites in Camden – part of the King’s Cross redevelopment area, the rear of the British Library, and the empty National Temperance Hospital site in Hampstead Road.
What’s needed is less self-interest among the politicians, and more imaginative and conviction politics.
In the United States the creation of jobs is sensibly at the heart of Obama’s anti-crisis package. It remains to be seen whether it will work. But if it fails it will be a noble failure.
Gordon Brown leans myopically towards a more fiscal solution.
But while the bankers benefit the economy slides towards disaster.
At least a reinvigorated building industry would boost demand for goods that could spread throughout the economy. |
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