Thursday, March 08, 2007
Our Active West Branch Campaign
Here is a recent letter to Adscene from two active members of the West branch continuing the important issue of housing.
Dear Editor
Your front page hit the nail on the head; we would agree with your correspondent in that it is 'tough' to achieve a first -time buy ( although in many instances for the average wage-earner it is quite impossible) because prices of family homes are ridiculously high .Regrettably the politicians of all shades appear to have failed to find an answer to the ever upwards price spiral. The County Council put out scaremongering suggestions about 'concreting over Kent' to frighten the electorate into agreeing with their policy of accepting the building the fewest possible new houses , and the Regional Council has set ridiculously low limits for future house building in the Draft Plan now being debated, both of which policies would ensure that the situation continues. The government seems to want to build only affordable houses for sale whereas the low income families desperately need affordable houses to rent. 25 years ago Thatcher began the, still continuing, sale of our Council Houses and since then the building of social housing has remained abysmally low ; last year it was nationally only a few thousand whereas over 200,000 a year are needed to stem the crisis. As Mr James Searle of Allington says in your article we are in danger of losing our 'young buyers'; those of us who are well-housed must be generous enough to accept that : all our children need housing, that our housing is not being taken by asylum seekers and 'interlopers' from outside the area, and that Kent will not be concreted over, or the housing crisis will not improve. The truth is that our population is growing faster than our housing stock and prices will continue to rise until the imbalance is corrected and all politicians at all levels of government and local government must be urged to accept this and to work on the solution as a matter of extreme urgency.
Sid Hollands and Leslie
Dear Editor
Your front page hit the nail on the head; we would agree with your correspondent in that it is 'tough' to achieve a first -time buy ( although in many instances for the average wage-earner it is quite impossible) because prices of family homes are ridiculously high .Regrettably the politicians of all shades appear to have failed to find an answer to the ever upwards price spiral. The County Council put out scaremongering suggestions about 'concreting over Kent' to frighten the electorate into agreeing with their policy of accepting the building the fewest possible new houses , and the Regional Council has set ridiculously low limits for future house building in the Draft Plan now being debated, both of which policies would ensure that the situation continues. The government seems to want to build only affordable houses for sale whereas the low income families desperately need affordable houses to rent. 25 years ago Thatcher began the, still continuing, sale of our Council Houses and since then the building of social housing has remained abysmally low ; last year it was nationally only a few thousand whereas over 200,000 a year are needed to stem the crisis. As Mr James Searle of Allington says in your article we are in danger of losing our 'young buyers'; those of us who are well-housed must be generous enough to accept that : all our children need housing, that our housing is not being taken by asylum seekers and 'interlopers' from outside the area, and that Kent will not be concreted over, or the housing crisis will not improve. The truth is that our population is growing faster than our housing stock and prices will continue to rise until the imbalance is corrected and all politicians at all levels of government and local government must be urged to accept this and to work on the solution as a matter of extreme urgency.
Sid Hollands and Leslie
