Socialist Councillors Fight Housing Crisis

Lewisham:

Socialist Councillors Fight Housing Crisis

LEWISHAM’S SOCIALIST Party councillors Chris Flood and
Ian Page have opposed all attempts to sell off their council’s housing
stock. You cannot rely on the ‘market’ to meet ordinary people’s housing
needs.

They are now demanding urgent action from local
councils to tackle the capital’s housing crisis. London has gone from
being the world’s seventh most expensive city to the second in just a
year, largely because of high accommodation costs and housing shortages.

Ian and Chris have a resolution at Lewisham council’s
July meeting saying they should consider using compulsory purchase orders
(CPOs) on private properties left empty for long periods to turn them into
social housing.

Lewisham is one of the few London boroughs that
doesn’t carry out CPOs, despite having the sixth highest number of empty
homes in the London area (about 2.72% of the total housing stock).

Letter

Chris wrote a letter to the local press pointing out
that:

"CPOs are only one aspect of a much needed overall
policy required to tackle the housing crisis… Lewisham Labour Council
group had an opportunity to at least vote in principle to support CPO’s at
the last full council meeting, but failed to do so, saying it could not be
afforded.

The cost of buying a house is becoming increasingly
out of reach for many people, at a time when social housing is becoming
more difficult to access. This is why the two Socialist Party Councillors
on Lewisham Council are also opposing any attempts to reduce the
affordable housing stock further.

Cynically the Labour majority are promoting the
options of Private Finance Initiative, Arms Length Management
Organisations and Stock Transfer, all privatisation options under another
guise.

What they are failing to tell the public is that there
is a fourth option, that of publicly owned, democratically run and
properly funded housing.

Funny how Lewisham council could afford to award
£75,000 in recent weeks to a private company to ‘search’ for homes for
people.

Or maybe Lewisham Council want to go down the road of
their March ‘Affordable Homes Symposium’, in which ‘a solution was offered
as to how to go about increasing the density of Lewisham’s housing stock
by developing on some of the large parks that are not in use because of
the fear of crime.’

Yes it sounds ridiculous but so is leaving buildings
empty when people need homes."

Chris Flood