Hackney,
14
August
2018
|
12:12
Europe/London

Mayor's response to the Social Housing Green Paper

Today the Government published its Social Housing Green Paper, which sets out minor suggested reforms to national housing policy. 

The Green Paper does not commit any new government funding to building Council housing, which the Council has consistently campaigned for so it can build new genuinely affordable Council homes for the 13,000 families on its housing waiting list. 

 

Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney
Today is yet another missed opportunity for the Government to unleash a new generation of Council housebuilding. Instead, ministers have made another announcement that comes without a penny of extra funding for social housing.

The Government is right that social housing tenants face stereotypes and stigma – problems it has all too often created through years of damaging policy and hostile rhetoric aimed at marginalising communities and putting up barriers for families desperately in need of somewhere to live.

I welcome the news that ministers have finally abandoned their counterproductive plans to force the sale of council homes – the latest damaging proposal to be scrapped after years of campaigning by Hackney Council and local tenants, as well as councils and charities across the country.

120,000 children spent last Christmas in hostels, bed and breakfasts and other types of temporary accommodation. Instead of warm words, ministers should take action to let councils like Hackney build the genuinely affordable homes our residents desperately need.
Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney