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Let’s get building
• IT'S time for New Labour to embrace council housing.
Rose Hacker has taken New Labour to task for deserting the socialist principles of the Labour Party (Good God! Brown has all the power, September 28). As someone born at the same time as the party, Rose can truly claim to be a guardian of Labour’s history and traditions. Her column should be compulsory reading for all members of the party, especially Gordon Brown.
One of the leadership’s bugbears over the last few years has been on the issue of housing, in particular, the campaign for the “fourth option” of funding the Decent Homes Standard. The fourth option would give councils an alternative to setting up an Arm’s-Length Management Organisation, Private Finance Initiative or stock transfer by raising funds themselves. Many people see these schemes, which have brought us Homes for Islington and Partners for Islington, as Trojan horses for eventual privatisation of council housing.
Then there is New Labour’s refusal to allow council homes to be built, and this at a time of acute housing shortage. The government’s stance may be shifting now to “allow” more council house building but the question of finance remains murky. The Treasury will continue to siphon off £1.5 billion a year from tenants’ rent and refuse to reinvest up to £50 billion in receipts from sales to leaseholders.
All we hear about these days is affordable housing. In itself, there’s nothing wrong with this, but tinkering with planning rules in the hope that developers will give up valuable space to provide affordable housing is not a solution to the housing crisis.
Last November the Guardian reported that there were some 13,120 families on Islington’s housing list. They are only going to be housed with a sustained programme of council house building.
RICHARD ROSSER
Highbury New Park, N5
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