New housing
Along with many other decisions we took today, the Committee also had to consider the signifcant housing developments at Parkend (275 houses), the old MacRae Hostel site (60 houses) and Smith's Shoe Shop (refused). Parkend is still subject to the approval of an overall Masterplan showing much more detail and the proposals for timing of the development.
All these three - along with all our other decisions - require to be ratified at the Council meeting next Thursday, but I would be surprised if any are overturned.
All these three - along with all our other decisions - require to be ratified at the Council meeting next Thursday, but I would be surprised if any are overturned.
3 comments:
We are continually getting told that the island population is in decline and windfarms are the only way to keep people here, so if everyone is leaving who is going to be living in all these new houses?
Or are we being fed lies to justify the windfarms?
There are 800+ people on the waiting list for housing at the present time. The problem is that the number of people per household is dropping, requiring more houses for the same number of people. The proposals are all for "starter" homes - 1 or 2 bedroom houses/flats.
So both arguments hold water - a declining/static but aging population needing more houses.
Things are about to get VERY much worse...
Report backs end to secure council tenancies
Matt Weaver
Tuesday February 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Council tenants could be forced to prove they still need their homes in regular means-tested reviews, it emerged today.
The proposal, part of a radical shake-up of housing outlined in a government-commissioned report, would end the right to a home for life by giving people fixed-term tenancies of between one and five years.
Under the plan - which the document admits could "sound outlandish", tenants would be forced to pay more for their home be asked to buy a stake in the value of the property if their circumstances improved.
If children left home, their parents would be forced to move to smaller properties.
The report, written for the government by Professor John Hills, of the London School of Economics, says such system would help free up homes to those who most need them.
"The ability to move 'empty nest' couples or single people might be a way of reducing overcrowding," it says.
It concedes that the possible loss of a secure tenancy would be "controversial", but adds that such a move could be needed in order to "make better use of very scarce and pressured resources".
The communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, who commissioned the report, wrote in a foreword that it was "not the last word" on issues but would open up debate.
"We have got no plans to change existing tenancy rights," a spokeswoman for her department added.
The document also examines ways of breaking up large sink estates, which it says have become concentrations of poverty.
In recommendations likely to be more acceptable to ministers, it suggests that council and housing association homes should be sold off to higher income groups or let out at market rents as they become vacant in order to create more economically mixed areas.
Cash raised from the scheme would be used to build replacement affordable homes elsewhere, it said.
Ms Kelly has in the past backed the idea of more "mixed communities".
The report recommends that the various right to buy schemes should be simplified into a single system that applies to both council and housing association tenants.
It says such a move would be likely to involve less generous discounts than those currently available to council tenants, but would give all social tenants a right to buy at least a share in the value of their homes.
The group Defend Council Housing, which campaigns for direct investment in council-run housing, reacted to the report with alarm.
"The government cannot create sustainable communities if they force tenants to move on and out against their will by imposing a time limit or introducing a means test on their tenancy," it said.
"It would turn our estates into massive hostels with a transient, not sustainable, community."
The Liberal Democrat housing spokesman, Dan Rogerson, said: "Forcing people out of their homes won't solve the crisis in social housing, but it will divide neighbourhoods. Our housing estates need a mix of backgrounds and incomes if we're to build and preserve genuine communities."
Mr Rogerson criticised Labour for its "failure to build enough social houses", which he said had "left a legacy of long waiting lists which are at the root of this problem".
Sarah Webb, the deputy chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said sink estates were the "concentrated areas of deprivation that we really need to tackle".
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