Letters: Labour Have Solutions to the Housing Problem

Published on: 31 Oct, 2017
Updated on: 31 Oct, 2017

From Brian Creese

Communications officer for Guildford Labour

I am pleased to see that Anne Milton does not regard housing at 80% of average value to be genuinely affordable (£406,000 for Guildford, £344,000 in Cranleigh) but I was not at all sure about the solutions she was proposing.

The Labour Party have a number of solutions. Firstly, rent controls can reign in the landlords who are, frankly, out of control. Guildford renters suffer from ultra-short term leases, rents increasing relentlessly and at least annually which gives renters no security, no respect and no chance of ever saving a penny.

Labour would build more social housing including old-fashioned council houses, like those championed by the late Bill Bellerby.

Ms Milton is correct to say the allocation of these is a problem, inevitably since each year, we have greater need but less housing left as the Tories continue to sell them off without replacement.

Labour would force builders to either build on the land they have stockpiled or lose it, so dramatically increasing the number of houses on land already acquired. But here the council has an important role. Guildford does not need larger, multi-million-pound homes – it needs houses and apartments that ordinary people can afford to live in.

And finally, Guildford does have a homelessness problem which is a disgrace in one of the most affluent areas in the country. Surely we could run to a few more hostel places to keep the homeless off the streets, woods and parks this winter?

Lots of hand-wringing from our MP but a clear lack of positive ideas and policies to actually help those struggling in Guildford’s housing crisis.

Responses to Letters: Labour Have Solutions to the Housing Problem

Jim Allen Reply

October 31, 2017 at 10:54 pm

Or perhaps the housing lying empty in Mansfield, Manchester and Liverpool could be put back into use and the jobs assigned to those locations. We have no real unemployment in the South-East. It is time to move the work and homes back to the North of England where there is still space to breathe and water to drink.
Paul Bishop Reply

November 1, 2017 at 12:46 pm

Conversely, it could be argued that anyone who wants to be surrounded by lots of green open space should move to the north of the country and leave the South-East for housing. As Jim Allen says, there’s plenty of air to breath and water to drink up there – still. 😉
- John Robson Reply
  
  November 1, 2017 at 3:09 pm
  
  Why not……
  
  The sons and daughters of the North have been marching South since the 1930’s.
  
  The south should embrace the break up of families, communities and the social fabric of their Towns as a consequence of crass Conservative economic policy.
John Perkins Reply

November 1, 2017 at 4:39 pm

Brian Creese tells us that Labour would build more social housing. Yet, when his party were last in power, enjoying huge majorities for 13 years, they built less than 8,000 council houses in total – an average of 562 per year. Even Housing Association builds averaged less than the administration before theirs. More than nothing is not much of a promise.

Controlling the “out of control” landlords is more likely to persuade them to sell than accept below market rates.

How exactly will builders be forced to build? Expropriation of their property is not acceptable in a free country and removal of their planning rights would make it impossible for them to comply.