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Sustainable Communities
By Beth Breeze
June 2006 Report
Given the importance of housing policy issue to every Labour party member, and indeed to the vast majority of voters, it will come as no surprise that top of the agenda for the Creating Sustainable Communities policy commission, of which I am a member, has been the issue of affordable housing.
Earlier in 2006, I and other members of the CSC met with Yvette Cooper, the Housing Minister, to review the government’s actions so far and to discuss the future role and funding of social housing.
Armed with input from many members, including a paper submitted to me by Maidstone CLP, which has campaigned energetically on this issue for many years, we discussed a number of points including:
- The government’s response to the Barker review, particularly the need for more affordable housing.
- How local authorities can start building homes again.
- Community ownership models.
- The potential of securitisation to provide a way of delivering extra investment into social housing.
It was agreed that the needs of council tenants and the quality of the services that they receive must be central to any discussion on how to move forward on social housing.
Given the importance of the issue it was decided to create a sub-group in order to concentrate specifically on this essential question.
This affordable housing sub-group, chaired by Michael Cashman MEP, and including the Housing Minister as a member, will look at the issues highlighted in the work programme, take evidence and explore options. Public meetings outside London are also being planned. The sub-group will report back to the full commission, who will consider a full response and future newsletters will contain updates on this central policy question.
If you wish to submit any views or information to the NPF’s work on affordable housing, or regarding any other policy areas covered by the Creating Sustainable Communities Commission, then please don't hesitate to do so.