Regent's Park &
Kensington North
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Karen Buck MP Regent's Park & Kensington North |
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Housing Commission for Westminster September 2005 Westminster Council has assembled an impressive panel for their new Housing Commission, which is being set up to make recommendations on how to move forward in tackling the borough’s severe housing problems. With the borough’s housing policy having been tainted for so long by the legacy of Shirley Porter and ‘Homes for Votes’, independent expertise and advice should make an important contribution to restoring trust, although the absence of any tenant/resident representation causes me concern (why not include the chair of the Housing Panel, or someone from City West Homes?). I certainly intend to make a submission to the Housing Commission, but, even more importantly, I will be extending an invitation to the members to join me in visiting some of the homes and neighbourhoods I represent, so that members can see for themselves what we are dealing with. We will, I expect, all agree with some basic principles- the right of all our residents, not just to a home, but to a home of a decent standard; the importance of ‘mixed communities’, where people from all backgrounds and tenures can live together; the critical role of housing and neighbourhood management in ensuring a decent quality of life; the role home ownership can play in boosting assets and increasing social mobility; the importance of giving tenants as much choice and control over the situation as possible. Yet translating these worthy aims into practical policy- especially in the challenging context of inner London- will not be as easy as expressing them in the first place. The laudable objective of ‘promoting mixed communities’, through Right to Buy (not to mention the discredited Conservative policies of ‘Designated Sales’) has, indeed, created home-owners out of tenants who would, otherwise, have had no chance to get on the property ladder. Yet, locally, this has been achieved at a cost of a huge reduction in social housing, leaving Westminster increasingly unable to meet the needs of homeless and over-crowded families. Scores of ex-council homes are now being rented back to the council to use as Temporary Accommodation- at four times the rent! And whilst many homeowners are delighted to invest in and maintain their homes, to the general benefit of the neighbourhood, other owners of ex-council flats are either struggling to cover their costs (after all, as the Joseph Rowntree Trust itself found, half of all those people living in poverty are homeowners), or are renting their properties out, sometimes to the severe detriment of the block or estate. Only this morning I was dealing with a distraught family who, having scrimped and saved to buy a council flat, have just been hit by a £13,000 major works bill that they have no means of paying on a joint household income only just above that amount!. Inner cities need families- yet for lower and middle income households, it is family sized accommodation which is often in shortest supply, This has contributed to a chronic local problem of over-crowding, demanding imaginative solutions not just relating to supply, but to management. Shared and other low-cost home ownership schemes have a vital role to play in meeting housing need, supporting mixed communities and helping London’s labour market- yet this option often seems out of reach here in Central London. The Housing Commission must take a hard look at how we reconcile the home-ownership dream with some of the tough realities of low income. I am very much looking forward to following the Commission’s work and making my own input to the process. I hope that readers and all local residents who have something to say on the subject will also put pen to paper or finger to keyboard- please feel free to write to me and I will pass on any contributions (Karen Buck MP, House of Commons, London SW1A OAA; k.buck@rpkn-labour.co.uk.) And finally, if Westminster Council, really wishes to impress on this important theme, I suggest they drop the battle with the Mayor of London to cut the share of new housing in the borough due toe be ‘affordable’. Somehow, it does not demonstrate the sort of commitment they would have us believe they now possess to deal with this most serious of local problems. |
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