One of the campaigns I have been leading in Reading is for the Council, working with developers and housing associations to build more affordable family-sized homes.
In October I published Reading Borough Council figures on average wait times for families waiting to move into 3 or four bed houses in Reading.
These showed that people in Reading are waiting around 22-24 months and nearly one thousand families are in the queue.
Buried in the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) report on Reading, published on the Oneplace yesterday:
'Good progress has been made building new homes over the past seven years when house building has been supported by strong economic growth. Almost half of the homes built have been affordable which is important as affordability of housing is a key issue for local people.
However, many of the new homes are flats available on a ‘shared ownership' basis. This has contributed to a continuing shortage of affordable rented property, particularly for families.
There are plans to provide more family rented accommodation. We will be looking carefully at whether these plans are successful in future assessments'
This is a damning indictment of Labour's planning policies in Reading.
We have around 5,000 people waiting for affordable housing and waiting in particular for family-sized housing and what has Labour's policies delivered?
Answer: an oversupply of yuppie flats in the town centre. National planning policies don't help but RBC needs to be more assertive with developers so that the housing that is delivered is the housing that meets the real needs of local people.
The Council's new housing strategy 2009-14, published in October was heavily influenced by Lib Dem campaigns for better standards in the private rented housing sector, improving estates and increasing the supply of larger affordable homes.
We will be keeping the pressure on the Labour administration to ensure that housing built in Reading in future is the housing local people need not simply what housing investors and developers want.
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