West End Letters: Guthrie Mckie | Westminster City Council | Housing Policy | Housing Renewal Strategy | Westminster Housing Commission

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 20 November 2009

Fanaticism on housing

I would not normally pursue a political issue at a point where it might appear to have outlived its interest.
But I believe public housing policy is going to be a major factor in next year’s local elections in London and that some of those issues are bound up in national policies that will be highlighted in the general election campaign.
It is no accident that Westminster City Council has launched it’s so-called Housing Renewal Strategy at this point. It is also no accident that this strategy departs significantly from the findings of the Westminster Housing Commission report of 2006 that was funded and supported by the council at that time.
The general tenor of the 2006 report was that because of land prices there was little chance of people on low or middle incomes buying property in Westminster and that the council should devote its energies and funding to developing quality rented properties (in both the social housing and private rented sector) for families with housing needs.
This report used clear and defined evidence to support its recommendations.
Finding such evidence in the Housing Renewal Strategy is difficult.
Much of its argument is based on wrongly interpreting the 2006 report together with ideological views on social housing.
When the 2006 report referred to the positive impact that mixed communities play in social cohesion it had in mind the fact that Westminster was a socially and economically polarised city where the more prosperous areas had little mixed and diverse communities.
The renewal strategy puts this argument on its head and says the areas of deprivation are deprived partly because they are not mixed or diverse communities.
Despite the clear evidence that they are indeed mixed and diverse.
The reason the strategy takes this approach is that it fits a particular political ideology which says that social housing prohibits people from making positive choices about their lives.
This is the most damning and dangerous aspect of this strategy because it suggests that choosing to live in social housing is a negative one.
It cleverly tries to manipulate the options that might be available so that residents will be “encouraged” to make what the strategy believes is an appropriate one.
By twisting evidence or ignoring it and by seeking to manipulate how people run their lives the strategy reveals its true meaning.
It is a housing document driven by political fanaticism. This at a time when thousands of Westminster families are living in unacceptable housing conditions, many of them for several years.
Any policy that seeks to achieve credibility and wide support would put their plight before any other consideration.
cllr Guthrie McKie
Labour Spokesperson for
Housing

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
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