Redlands Liberal Democrats

Stairlift success

I blogged in April about my efforts to help an elderly constituent  in my ward get the Council to install a stairlift in her Council property and I was really pleased today when I popped round to find that it has finally be installed (see pic).

I checked back through my emails and found out I first asked Council officer to look into this last July -  a long time to wait. The process residents need to go through for adaptations like this is too slow, as well complicated for many people to understand.

Anyway, I'm very glad I was able to help and it's very gratifying to see how much Mrs Buckley's life has been enhanced by the lift. So much better also that she can stay in her own home, near her friends and not have to move into another property.

Lib Dems reveal hidden tax on Council tenants in Reading

The Evening Post picked up a campaign led by Cllr Gareth Epps and myself into the scandal of a 'hidden tax' on Council house tenants in Reading. As a result of Labour government policy,15% of Council rents in Reading end up going back to government coffers.

Cllr Epps said: “It is absolutely outrageous that Reading council tenants are paying rent, not to go on maintaining Reading’s council housing, but to go into a Treasury black hole. Council tenants will be shocked to discover that 15 per cent of their rent doesn’t come back to Reading at all.

“Yet again the Labour Government is penalising some of Reading’s poorest households.

“This money should be going into making every Reading home a decent home and building much needed new affordable housing. Instead, it is being siphoned off by Gordon Brown for his own purposes. It is literally daylight robbery and I hope Reading politicians will start to stand up to it.

I agree. We will be pressing the Council's CCEA Panel to look into this issue in greater depth later in the year to provide answers for Reading's Council tenants.

In other news, the Post published a report on the Kings Tavern Licence application. Please conctact me if you have any questions or concerns about the licence withdrawal earlier this week.

Predicting the local impact of the 'credit crunch'

Economic downturn, credit crunch - pick your jargon there's a lot of discussion about it on the news etc. I am particularly interested in this issue from local and housing perspectives. Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable warned today of a "deep crisis in the housing market" during PMQs and it certainly is an issue which concerns me both as a ward councillor, and as the Lib Dem housing spokesperson in Reading.

At last week's meeting of the Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny Panel (which I now Chair), I asked the Director of Housing and Community Care to give a short presentation on 'challenges facing Reading' in relation to her area of responsibility: housing and community care. Her presentation did not include reference to challenges caused by a 'lack of affordable housing'. When I pressed on this she admitted that this was an ongoing challenge for RBC.

I would argue it's a national challenge, and not one that's got any easier under Labour. The sad fact is that Council housing lists have increased by 60% under Labour, with 1 in 4 Council houses being sold off under the Right to Buy legislation brought in by the Tories.

Affordable housing is a major issue in Reading where we are facing high house prices, a similar cost of living to those living in London, and a considerable waiting list for Council properties.

The reason I raise this subject today is that I am reading more and more articles which point to a renewed threat to the supply of affordable housing, as house builders cut back the number of new homes they build.

Figures released last month suggested that the rate at which new houses are being built had fallen to its lowest level since 1945. The Construction Products Association calculated 147,700 new homes would be built this year compared to 203,900 in 2007. This clearly has a very serious knock on effect on the number of new affordable homes that will be built this year in Reading. Given the amount that local Councils rely on funding via 'planning gain' from new developments, any reduction in housebuilding in the town could have a negative effect on spending on local facilities.

Now that Councils can no longer build houses themselves, housing associations play a key role in ensuring that affordable homes are available for sale or rent in our towns and cities.

Worrying news then that housing associations ability to provide new homes is seriously threatened in the current economic climate according to senior figures in the industry. Banks and Building Societies are cutting back on the amount of money they are a willing to invest in housing associations and to quote David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation:

"We face a three-way stand-off between lenders who won't lend, buyers who won't buy and builders who won't build"

Coupled with the slow-down in the number of new housing being built, we are faced potentially with a rise in the number of empty homes in the Borough, including new-build properties such as executive flats which housebuilders are unable to sell .

I have been campaigning for many months to get RBC to refresh it's approach to dealing with empty homes which it turns out is very timely, as in May it was revealed that the number of empty homes in the UK had risen for the first time in 10 years as a result of reposessions etc. Ironically, the Council's original empty homes policy was introduced on the back of the recession in the 1990s.

Any reduction in the supply of affordable housing supply will clearly also impact on the private rented sector in Reading, which accounts for a large percentage of the housing stock and on the number of families living in overcrowded and poor standard accomodation.

The impact that another recession will have on Reading's homeless population also needs to be considered - an issue my colleague Patrick Murray, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Reading West wrote about in an excellent article at the start of the year. As confirmed by RBC officers earlier in the year, Reading currently has the highest rough sleeper population outside London.

In my role as Chair of HHCC I am trying to organise a one off scrutiny event to be held to debate issues surrounding Reading's large private rented sector with landlords, tenants and those affected. I will post more information on this subject here when I have it. I also hope to get a review of progress on empty homes, affordable housing and another look at rough sleeper debate on the agenda this year.

I pressed the Director of Housing and Community Care last week about what plans Reading Borough Council has in place to deal with the fall-out of the credit crunch and was pretty reassured by the response given. A new draft housing strategy is currently being drawn up by officers and will go to consulation soon.

Clearly no one knows what is around the corner, but the Lib Dems in Reading will continue to scrutinise these plans carefully to ensure that as much as possible, the Council is prepared.

Crowded streets

There are around a dozen streets in Redlands, in particular the streets off Erleigh Rd, where the number of people living in them has reached a critical level.

Much of the housing in these streets is owned by private landlords who typically extend them into the roofspace, the back garden and in several cases, into the basement. They are then rented to students or immigrant workers.

Higher housing density is not a bad thing in itself, but where parking and waste management runs out of the space required, or where it causes increases in crime or anti-social behaviour, then it needs to be managed. We have fairly good data that this is happening in Redlands.

The Labour Government has been encouraging higher housing densities in town centres, believing this to be a way of dealing with the lack of affordable housing in the UK. So they are taking steps to make permitted development (planning law) more lax...allowing landlords to build still bigger extensions.
They have also limited what can be done on HMO ("Houses in Multiple Occupation") licensing, requiring huge volumes of data to increase the scope of licensing schemes. Combine this with the move to increase the number of people going to University, with the pressure on Universities to be more commercial (student accomodation provided by Universities is a cost, rather than a money-maker), and we have a situation of increasing pressure on housing, without the tools to manage it.

Lib Dems in other towns have called for zones which are subject to special controls, limiting the number of HMOs in particular areas. These have been struck down by the courts. Nevertheless we are hoping that national moves to make HMOs a separate planning category, which includes student accomodation,
will mean that the planning system can be used to effectively manage the issue.

Meanwhile, we will be making sure the Council applies the planning rules it can use, that it licenses the HMOs it can license, and that the University and Council work together, to make sure that there is enough quality accomodation in the town without increasing pressure on already crowded streets. I have already met with senior officers in planning and licensing to move this forward.

We will also be working through the Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAGs) to find ways to deal with the issues of parking, waste management and anti-social behaviour that result from high density housing, and make the area more pleasant to live in.