By Cllr Andy Croy
We are facing multiple housing crises. It is not just about protecting (or not) this field or that field.
There are simply not enough houses available to rent or buy at a reasonable price.
Many families have to pay expensive private rents and it is impossible to save for a deposit.
Living in private rented property, be it a single room or a four-bedroom house, means paying a lot of money for an insecure existence, knowing the property may be sold from under you, or the rent raised arbitrarily. Private renting can be a precarious and expensive way to live. For those who wish to buy a house, the cost of private renting makes it so much harder to save for a deposit
The cost and uncertainty of private renting makes it harder for young people to leave home. Often, those that do can only afford to do so with the help of the bank of mum and dad – if mum and dad have a bank.
Council housing – not social housing/Housing Associations – offers the solution. Housing Associations are accountable to no one. They are often mega-landlords with little or no local connection. As a councillor I am all too aware of the difference in how Councils treat their tenants and how Housing associations treat their tenants.
A recent cross-party working group at Wokingham Borough council saw councillors from all parties agreeing that tenants were far better served by Wokingham Council than by whatever Housing Association had managed to snaffle the development rights on one of our new estates.
Both social housing, normally owned and managed by Housing Associations, and Council Housing, offer properties for rent at about 60% of the market rate. The cheapness of renting a Council house – and it is cheap because no one is making a profit from it – offers the residents a couple of choices.
With more money left in their bank accounts, families have greater resilience in the face of rising bills. Families who wish to save a deposit to buy their own house will find their spare cash can accumulate in their own deposit pot and not the landlord’s bank account
But currently there are simply not enough Council houses for everyone who needs a home. Council houses have been sold off but not replaced. This has increased demand for private rented properties which has made private rents ever more expensive.
High private sector rents can mean that tax payers money has to be paid to landlords in the form of housing component of Universal Credit or Housing Benefit. Everyone has to pay for our housing crisis.
The housing market is broken and needs to be fixed but house building is at a record low, further increasing pressure on rents and prices.
1962 was a remarkable year for Council housing in Wokingham. An article in local press – check the excellent “Wokingham in the News (Extracts from local newpapers 1791 to 1999” by Jim Bell – noted that in that year, Wokingham Town Council had completed its 750th permanent council house for rent built since the end of the Second World War 17 years earlier – or about 44 houses per year.
I was astonished, and proud, to see that for 13 of these golden years, the chair of the housing committee was A.N. Lawrence, a Labour councillor who, I read to my astonishment, has been elected in 1937, and served on the council for 34 years.
The paper also noted that in the 18 years between 1921 and 1939 the council had built only 40 Council houses or about two houses per year. The years of the Great Depression were, however, halcyon days for Council house building in Wokingham compared to the modern era.
In the 20 years between 1998 and 2018, the Conservatives managed to not build a single Council house, preferring instead to let flawed Housing Associations take the strain.
In recent years, the response to requests to build Council houses has been “the Council cannot afford the land”.
This obstacle to Council house building looks set to disappear with the news this week that a Labour government will empower local authorities to purchase land at the land’s current use value – rather than its speculative value.
This will mean local authorities like Wokingham Borough Council will be able to afford to buy land for housing and will once again be able build the homes which people need – and which people can afford.
Cllr Andy Croy is Labour councillor for Bulmershe and Whitegates on Wokingham Borough Council
