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Housing
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 14:14 |
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PRESS RELEASE
AUSTIN MITCHELL MP 1 July 2009
Tel: 020 7219 4559
The Council Housing Group of MPs welcomes John Healey’s announcement today that councils will be able to retain all of their rents from council housing and the proceeds of their Right to Buy sales.
This concedes the Fourth Option and the level playing field we and Defend Council Housing have been fighting for, for several years.
Our congratulations to the new Minister.
We regret, however, that this major and necessary change to the policies the Government has misguidedly followed since 1997 comes too late to generate the big council housing building drive the country needs
We urge the Government to introduce the changes immediately and to put a moratorium on Large Scale Voluntary Transfers until the financial basis on which these can occur has been totally recalculated. We also urge a housing development grant for councils to put them back into the building game and put builders back to work urgently. Remember, this Government has only 10 months to go and it needs to use that time to atone for the housing failures of 10 years. Britain needs a strong and healthy public rented housing sector to provide decent affordable democratically controlled and socially mixed housing for the large proportion who can’t afford to buy.
Austin Mitchell
Chair, Council Housing Group of MPs
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Last Updated on Thursday, 09 July 2009 11:08 |
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