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To 13,000 on the waiting list affordable housing is priority
• I FIND Simon Harris’s comments regarding MP Emily Thornberry extremely unfair and misguided (How affordable homes push up prices of other properties, January 25).
Ms Thornberry has campaigned vigorously for affordable housing to be built in Islington, both for renting (housing association and council flats) and for buying.
He states that “a developer is obliged to subsidise the affordable homes by increasing the costs of the homes for sale”. I see no logic in this comment. I’m sure Ms Thornberry would fight vigorously for the building of one, two and three-bedroom flats, for sale at an affordable price.
Her campaign for the development of more housing association and council flats for renting is completely justified. She did not create the 13,000-plus council waiting list – it was in existence before she became an MP and she would not be doing her job if she did not address this issue.
I would also like to remind Mr Harris that it is not “a condition of tenancy” that one be on benefit to become a housing association or council tenant.
As regards David Sant’s comment that Ms Thornberry is “playing catch-up and duplicating Bridget Fox’s campaign” (A bit late for MP to enlist in campaign to save post office, January 25), could I remind him that Ms Thornberry is a very busy lady, dealing with a multitude of different issues as an active MP, while Ms Fox has plenty of free time on her hands to pursue isolated, headline-grabbing causes, since she was removed by the voters of Barnsbury from her position at the Town Hall.
Mr Sant also states: “It must be election time soon.” Well, I don’t think so.
A good indication of any forthcoming election date will be when Ms Fox starts bombarding the letters page with her “constructive criticism” of Ms Thornberry’s performance.
MATT REID
Brooksby Street, N1
• SIMON Harris feels that Emily Thornberry does not have “a good case for more affordable housing” and he can’t understand why she is “so obsessed with providing more affordable housing”.
It’s true – getting more affordable housing built is a priority for Emily. In Parliament, Emily sits on the housing select committee, and last year she deputised for the then Housing Minister Yvette Cooper at a Labour Party conference.
Why is it such a priority for Labour? Well, if Mr Harris would like to get in touch with me, I’ll take him round some estates in my ward to meet a few of the 13,000 families on the housing waiting list, and then maybe he’ll understand why it is such a priority for Emily and Islington Labour councillors.
Mr Harris claims that demanding more affordable homes raises the price of homes for sale – what he calls “the ones most people buy”. His definition of “most people” certainly does not include most of the 13,000 families on the waiting list.
The average income on an Islington estate is just over £6,000 – and it’s hard to get a two-bed flat for less than £250,000, so new private flats offer no hope.
Mr Harris could also have come round the Market estate last week, when Emily and the Holloway councillors showed government minister Caroline Flint the £40million work that’s being done to rebuild the much-troubled estate and bring it up to modern standards.
Just a couple of days after our visit, Caroline was promoted to Housing Minister. I am sure her understanding of the issues benefited from seeing the estate that week, and I expect Mr Harris’s would too.
Cllr Paul Smith
Labour, Holloway
• WHAT on earth is wrong with being obsessed by affordable housing (How affordable homes push up prices of other properties, January 25)? If a Labour MP was not obsessed by affordable housing there would be something wrong.
Simon Harris implies there is something wrong with Emily Thornberry for sticking up for people who live in overcrowded council estates.
I suggest Mr Harris uses the “large disposable income” he and his Tory friends earn to book a one-way flight to Australia.
He thinks we need more people like him in Islington. I’d say we need fewer.
Jack Graves, N1
(address supplied)
• SPOT on, Simon Harris. Thank god someone is daring to speak out against the PC brigade who tell us that being against affordable housing is the modern-day blasphemy.
Like Mr Harris, I have had more than enough of the Labour team in Islington and beyond going on about affordable housing. I fear that, if Labour takes back the council in 2010, affordable housing will be the only item on every council meeting agenda.
It’s about time someone stood up for people who have made their money fair and square and want to live in a nice home in a pleasant area.
Let’s start by getting Boris Johnson in at City Hall and send Ken and his plans for more affordable housing packing.
Spencer Harrison
Bowling Green Lane, EC1
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