Lincoln fights to defend council housing

ACROSS THE country local councils are getting rid of their council
housing through private finance initiatives (PFI), arms length
management schemes and sell-offs to private companies and housing
associations.

Marc Glasscoe, Lincoln

Lincoln Socialist Party members have been campaigning to retain
housing stock under the local council’s control. But simply fighting for
the council to keep control is not enough. The government can sit back
and starve the council of funds to maintain and improve its stock until
tenants beg to be privatised.

We need to organise and fight for proper funding for our homes, for
high quality services and a genuinely accountable landlord. We must also
fight for this money to come from direct government funding and not be
added to tenants’ rents or forced onto tenants and others through
council tax hikes.

On 8 February the Defend Council Housing group are organising a mass
rally and lobby of Parliament. We are organising a delegation so we can
put forward our case for decent, affordable social housing. This is
strongly supported by tenants, trade unionists and even local
councillors, fed up with the government attacking what they believe in.

The days of a Labour government even pretending to pay attention to
ordinary working-class people have long gone. We need to build a new
mass workers’ party, with a genuine fighting socialist programme for
social housing, based on working-class people’s needs and not big
business’ rapacious profits.