Campaigning for more for support older tenants and families in housing need

Locally one of the issues I have actively campaigned on is in relation to overcrowding. This is a significant issue in Reading where we have a real shortage of affordable housing for families. I care about it because i have seen in my own ward the damage overcrowding does to the health and well children and families in our area.

We are a small Borough geographically so we do not have lots of sites available for big housing developments so it is essential we make the best use of the housing we have already got. By this I mean best use of housing in all sectors - privately rented, council-owned, housing association and empty properties

We do not only lack affordable housing but in particular family-sized homes. The Council's stock of family-sized housing is much smaller thanks to the disastrous combination of the Right To Buy policy plus the fact that under Labour no new Council houses were built.

Another key factor has been the fact that around 90% of new housing built in the past few years has been flats rather than houses.

I investigated the extent of the problems this caused when I was in opposition when questions to Council I tabled in 2009 revealed:

'Average wait time for a three bed Council/RSL property in Reading is a shocking 20 months
Average wait time for a four bed Council property in Reading is currently 22 months
435 council homes have been sold off by RBC since 1997'

As I commented at the time:

'These figures confirm my experience supporting constituents in the ward: there is a chronic under-supply of affordable family-sized (3 and 4 bed) housing in Reading and the time some families are having to wait for housing is far too long.'

I used this information as Chair of Scrutiny to champion action to help families stuck in overcrowded accommodation.

I am pleased to say I have been able to help a small number of families who were previously overcrowded but I am conscious that there are hundreds more families who need my help and support so I must keep campaigning in my role as Lead Councillor.

The flip sized of overcrowding in under-occupancy where family-sized houses are not fully-occupied. This is a very sensitive issue as many people are understandably keen to stay in homes they have lived in for many years.  However, as people get older they often find they are unable to manage larger properties and smaller properties are more suitable and for example cheaper to heat. The need to give older people more housing choice is one of the reasons I have been so keen to champion new developments of extra-care Council housing currently under construction in the Town.

For the reasons I outlined above it is incumbent on the Council to ensure that it is utilising all housing stock to address housing need most effectively, so we must look at how we reduce under-occupancy.

Why blog this today? Well, last month Grant Shapps MP, Minister for Housing announced £13 million pounds worth of additional funding for councils to help older tenants move into more suitable accommodation.

This announcement follows research commissioned by Mr Shapps into the reasons why older people often do not want to move. I was disappointed to learn that Reading Borough Council was not one of the 50 councils which were set to benefit from this additional cash as there are good reasons why we could put it to good use:

• The high levels of pressure on the Council housing stock, especially in relation to large family sized units.
• The disproportionate number of elderly tenants who are on a low income and would struggle to maintain larger properties

In Reading it is estimated that 26% (35) of Local Authority-owned four-bed properties are under occupied and in the last three years, only 19 under occupied properties have been released via a transfer to a smaller property. As a result of this the Council is already undertaking a review of incentives and our approach to reduce under-occupancy.

Our recently adopted Housing Strategy which enjoys cross-Party support identifies the following priorities in relation to this issue:

• Tackling under occupation in our own stock
• Approaching households on the waiting list requiring large family units on a case-by-case basis to assess other options to reduce over crowding, for example, assisting adult dependants into their own tenancy
• Assessing a household’s current property for practical measures to increase space and reduce over-crowding

I have written to Mr Shapps and our two local MPs today arguing that Reading should benefit from additional support so the Council can better support older tenants find alternative accommodation and the hundreds of families in desperate need of family-sized housing. I really hope we can gain their support on this.

Never let facts get in the way of a good (housing) story

Now that the local Labour Party is no longer running Reading Borough Council they clearly have a lot of extra time on their hands which, sadly, they appear to be using to spread misleading, inaccurate stories about policies of the Coalition Government and the Coalition Council. On the plus side they have finally discovered Twitter - which is to be welcomed. They were seemingly the last political Party in Reading to do so, but never mind they got there in the end.
Don't get me wrong - I have no problem with Labour issuing press releases. It's reasonable to expect politicians of all colours will try and political points - we've all done it.
What saddens me is the way in which the local Labour Party indulges in scaremongering in an attempt to grab the headlines. Who benefits from this approach? Not local people, that's for sure. The people it hurts is the worst off - people who are depending on politicians for help and support.
It's not a new tactic. We've seen it before in Reading. Yet again Labour are reverting to their age old tactic of scaring the electorate into voting for them - forgetting of course that local voters possess a) a memory and b) a brain which enables them to see through Labour spin.
The fact is, that since May I've yet to read a press release from Reading Labour Party iwhich has contained one constructive idea in it or indeed any details about how their policies would be paid for.
Let's not forget, going into the election Labour was committed to making £44 billion pounds worth of cuts. And at least part of those savings were going to be in welfare - that much is clear.
Take housing, for instance. You'd think wouldn't you that after the parlous record of the previous Labour government when it comes to building new homes, local Labour councillors would want to keep quiet on that subject locally. I've blogged loads about this in recent years because I think access to decent housing is a basic human right and I have spent the last few years campaigning to help make this a reality for people living in Reading.
Anyway, back to housing, and below are some statistics you won't be reading in a Labour Party Press Release any time soon:

Between 1997-2010:

• New homes built = 559,000 (337,000 for rent and 192,00 low cost home ownership
• Homes sold: 605,000
• Reduction in homes in the overall social housing sector: 45,530 in 13 years
• Reduction in homes available for social rent: 227,000 homes fewer homes to rent
• Housing waiting list: nationally went up 741,000 - leaving 1,763,000 families waiting for a home
• Unrealistic nationally-imposed housing targets: fell short by 78,000 homes last year
• Housing benefit bill went from £10 billion to £21 billion

And locally, under Labour management of Reading Borough Council:-

• Hundreds of family-sized Council homes in Reading were sold off and not replaced.
• The waiting list for social housing rose to over 4,000
• As a result the number of families in overcrowded accommodation soared.
• Flats were crammed onto back gardens as a result of John Prescott's planning policies - over 90 % of new-build properties in Reading over the past two years have been flats adding to the pressure on larger properties
• The private-rented sector expanded unchecked -with little or no regulation of the sector
• A booming buy to let market which pushed up rents and that is quickly turning into a buy to leave market in some areas
• Hundreds of private homes left empty because the Council had no strategy to reduce the number
• The number of houses of multiple-occupation increased leaving many neighbourhoods struggling to cope until an in depth scrutiny investigation led by myself and Cllr Ricky Duveen prompted action

This week Labour activists were busy once again spreading misinformation about Coalition policies about housing.Their press release quoted pretty much wholesale in the Evening Post states:

"London borough councils are already block-booking B & B rooms in Reading to house people who will lose their homes."

Wrong. To my knowledge no such block-booking is taking place. And it really isn't difficult to find this out. All Labour councillors needed to do was to check with officers at the Council, as I did when I heard this rumour and they would have found there is not a grain of truth in this. Labour locally are simply repeating the misinformation promulgated by Ed Miliband and others.

It's disappointing that former 'independent' councillors in Reading have fallen into the same trap. In addition it seems the latest Labour candidate for Redlands (a ward Labour have failed to win for the last four years) is failing to check her facts before she opens her mouth, claiming that "Redlands is likely to be a ward hit by the housing benefit cap." She then misrepresents some recent announcements about HMOs and claims that the 'delicate balance' between family housing and HMOs could be at risk in some parts of my ward.

I can reassure readers that this description could not be further from the truth. I'm prepared to give Labour's latest candidate for Redlands the benefit of the doubt but on the evidence of this outburst she clearly doesn't know her ward that well.

I can show her plenty of streets where Labour councillors over the years turned a blind eye to issues such as HMOs and the housing mix - indeed any sense of balance of housing types! Until a couple of years ago you barely heard Labour councillors even mention the private rented housing sector, let alone student housing.

As Lead Member for Housing and ward councillor for Redlands I prefer to base my information on unbiased, professional sources - like the Council's housing department and the Department for Communities and Local Government. Based on current data I have seen the numbers of people in Reading who would be affected by the cap at the moment is likely to be very small.

It's worth saying that these proposals have not been introduced yet and at the moment Labour are dining out on 100 % pure speculation. This is pretty scandalous when you think that people on housing benefit are not well off and have enough to worry about without Labour adding to their concerns.

As a responsible administration we are monitoring the situation all the time and we will work to ensure support is available for those who find themselves in housing need as a result of any changes. Because I think the role of councillors is to find solutions, not cause alarm.

I do think it's right however that there is an incentive to work and I'm not sure it is fair if people claiming housing benefits can afford to live in areas other families cannot afford to. And that's not the only issue. Labour in government were happy to consign millions of people to a life on benefits and all the problems such as ill-health that can cause rather than helping them out of poverty. That is the real scandal.

Nowhere in the Labour press release do they spell out an alternative to a continuation of high rents and high benefits bills. And on the subject of facts, here is one that Labour activists new and old, from Redlands to Southcote prefer not to acknowledge: in their 2010 Manifesto Labour pledged to reform housing benefit and limit the amount of housing benefit families could claim.

When I raised this on BBC Radio Berkshire, Cllr Pete Ruhemann claimed not to have heard me - despite the fact he was sitting in a radio studio, presumably wearing headphones. Nevermind, I don't think the listeners will have misheard what I said or his silence on the issue.

On Coalition housing policies some facts:

• Proposals to offer fixed-term tenure and alter rent levels are optional i.e. will not be imposed from the centre.
• If adopted they will only apply to new tenants and with rents covered by housing benefits

It will be down to Reading Borough Council and councillors to decide in consultation with tenants groups what is appropriate for Reading. I will be scrutinising the proposals when they are published by government and only progressing them if I think they have the potential to help local families and individuals and improve the housing situation.

As I said on the radio, I do have concerns about some the proposals but in general I prefer to base my decisions on factual information not guesswork and scaremongering from the local Labour Party, who have demonstrated time after time they are not on the side of local residents and tenants.

Andrew Stunell, Lib Dem local government minister has pledged that the Coalition wil be the first government to make a net addition of homes to the social housing sector since 1979. This is a big ask and I am many others will keep the pressure on to ensure the government delivers where Labour so comprehensively failed. In the meantime, when it comes to housing, a little honesty and a little humility from Labour wouldn't go amiss.

Overcrowding in Reading damaging lives of families

I got a phonecall out of the blue earlier this week from a woman living with her a family in West Reading. They are overcrowded. Three children are currently sharing one bedroom. I get calls like this pretty regularly but that doesn't mean that individual cases are not heartrending. I asked the female caller what impact the current housing situation is having on family life.She told me that her children - three girls and one boy - have no personal space and nowhere to do homework in peace. It affects their social life as they cannot invite friends round. "I want to move somewhere larger so that my children can have room to breathe" she told me. It's calls like this which spur me to campaign for a better quality of life for local people. They are the basic reason I stood for election as a local councillor and why I would like to be a Member of Parliament. I am not content to shrug my shoulders -I want to work to help local people, particularly those in need.

Overcrowding - a Reading-wide issue
As a local councillor I have been contacted countless times in recent years by families in the same predicament as the women who called me earlier this week. I have long been concerned that the people contacting me in my ward are the tip of the iceberg so last October I tabled some written questions about about this issue which revealed the true extent of the problem faced by hundreds of families. With this in mind I have been campaigning for more family-sized houses to be built in Reading in the coming years to meet local need. I was keen to dig deeper to get more information about this isue and get more attention from politicians and officers in Reading on this issue so via my role as Chair of Scrutiny I asked officers to prepare a focussed piece of work on the issue of overcrowding. We are due to discuss that report on Thursday evening in a meeting of the HHCC Scrutiny Panel. The facts contained within the report I commissioned are worth highlighting:

• The number of people on Reading on the Council's 'housng register' has risen from 4,400 (April 2008) to around 6000 in February 2010 - an increase of 30%
• This increase is partly due to the impact of the recession but one of the most common reasons given is overcrowding
• In February 2010 there were around 186 families in Reading registered with RBC as needing a propertywith 4 or more bedrooms
• Data is not available for overcrowding in privately-rented housing -which could also be a signficant figure

The supply of larger family homes either housing association or Council-owned is in short supply and the local authority in Reading is simply unable able to meet demand. Too few affordable homes are being built each year in Reading. Under successive Labour governments councils have been prevented from building the number of council houses that local communities need to replace the loss of thousands of council houses which were sold off via the disastrous Right to Buy policies introduced by the Conservatives. Officers in the local authority are doing everything they can but their hands have been tied by government which has dicated housing policies to councils far too much. Currently the pressure is greatest on properties that are 4 or more bedrooms.

• The Council currently owns 133 x 4 bedroom properties and 3 x 5 bedroom properties
• RSL (housing assocation) partners built 28 x 4 bed and 2 x 5 bed properties in the last 2 years
• 22 x 4 bed and 1 x 5 bed houses are planned by 2013

I'll leave you to do the math...!

Overcrowding is a problem across Reading, but there are some wards where the problem is particularly acute. Based on figures about percentages of tenant transfer requests these are - Caversham (20.5%), Minster (14,8%), Battle (10.3%) followed by Katesgrove and Southcote (8.3%), Redlands (8.2%) and Abbey and Church (8.1%).

Finding solutions

In Reading and many parts of the South-East the affordability of housing is a major issue. A recent national survey showed that only 23% of families under 40 living in the South East can afford to get on the housing ladder. More council homes must be built in Reading to meet the needs of our growing population. Larger affordable homes for families are urgently needed and thanks to pressure from the Lib Dems on the Borough Council the Council's Housing Strategy 2009 -2014 the blueprint for future housing in the Town includes plans to alter the housing mix towards more family-sized housing. There are very few large sites in Reading and the outskirts of the Town where large-scale new housing can be developed so we need to get better at getting more out of our exisiting housing stock. Long-term empty properties being brought back into use must also be part of the solution which I have actively supported. RBC is looking at ways of getting the most out of existing council stock - including extending some properties and encouraging some tenants who are technically 'under-occupying' council homes to move into smaller properties. As you can imagine, persuading people to downsize is not easy. A report on this is due in the autumn.The private rented sector has a key role to play - hence the need to raise standards in the sector - since 2008 600 households have been placed by RBC's housing team into the private sector via the increasingly-popular Deposit Guarantee Scheme. On a national level I am grateful to Shelter for pointing out the terrible impact that overcrowding is having on children and families. I will continue to campaign to get action taken to help families affected here in Reading.

Crowded House: action needed for local families

I've been campaigning for many months now to raise the profile of the problem of overcrowding in Reading. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the most serious issues many families in our Town face and it is causing huge damage to the lives of children, young people and families.

We know that there are around 5,000 people currently waiting to move into social housing in Reading but we don't really know exactly how many families are living in overcrowded accomodation.

As Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Panel in Reading I have asked officers to produce a report for our March meeting on the problem of overcrowding in Reading. This is the first time such a report has been produced as far as I know - or at least the first that has been produced since I joined the Council in 2006.

The report will also investigate the sensitive issue of 'under-occupancy' as there are some RBC properties in Reading which are technically under-occupied.

Why does overcrowding matter? Because it ruins the health and quality of life of families. Over on my ward blog I have described some real examples of local people who are being badly effected who I came across as a ward councillor. Having witnessed real suffering in my own ward, I am now very motivated to get this issue on the political agenda and action taken.

There are potentially thousands of families in this position in Reading right now.

Earlier this year I supported Shelter's campaign to reform the outdated housing laws which relate to the definition of overcrowding. The legal framework matters because it is this which dictates the policies of councils like Reading.

I'm grateful to Shelter for highlighting some facts about the current law around overcrowding:

• It hasn’t been updated since 1935. Back then they thought that smoking was healthy, too.
• Living rooms and kitchens are considered acceptable sleeping spaces.
• Children under 10 count as half a person, and babies under one don’t count at all.
• According to the law, a family of five** living in a one-bedroom flat would not be classed as living in overcrowded accommodation.
• Shelter research has shown that overcrowding causes anxiety and depression, limits educational success and harms health

In Reading, like a lot of other places, overcrowding is linked to a shortage of larger or 'family-sized' accommodation. I have been leading the campaign locally for more houses like these - more affordable homes, more Council houses and more empty homes to be transformed into cheap housing for local families.

I hope that by finding out the extent of the problem and gaining a better understanding about the challenges many people are dealing with we can go some way towards alleviating the problems many families are facing in Reading today.

Nick Clegg unveils bold plans to tackle empty homes

Great news today: Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Sarah Teather have set out radical new plans to reduce the number of empty homes in the UK.

Nick has set out plans which will help bring thousands of empty homes back into use (providing more homes for people that need them).

These plans will also help create around 65,000 new jobs.

What a great idea!

David Ireland, Chief Executive of the Empty Homes Agency, the charity which is leading the national campaign for action on this issue responded to the news as follows:

"This bold policy would transform the scale of England’s empty homes crisis, enabling a very significant proportion to become affordable homes for people.” He added, “This sends out a challenge to the government and other opposition parties to say how they would help create more homes from England’s empty property.”

This is an issue really close to my heart.

People who know me will know that I have been campaigning on this issue since 2006 in Reading.

I led a successful campaign to get Labour-run Reading Borough Council to take action to bring homes back into use.

As a result of our campaign the Council now has an empty homes strategy and RBC issued a press release today which revealed that homes in Whitley, Norcot and Caversham have all been renovated and sold to become family homes as a result.

There is a long way to go in Reading but the Lib Dem plans set out today would help reduce the number of empty homes much more quickly.

You can visit my Redlands blog for more details on our local empty homes campaign.

Some facts:

There are around 500 long term empty homes in Reading and an estimated 5,000 people waiting for affordable housing to rent.

This is a scandal. And the number has increased this year due to the impact of the recession.

Families in Reading are having to wait on average 20 months for family-sized social housing to become available.

As a result, thousands of families and children in Reading are currently living in badly overcrowded conditions.

I am campaigning to get help for these families and to get the Council to build more family-sized social homes.

Nick Clegg's plan would make more of these types of houses available for families to rent in Reading and it would help reduce the pressure to develop sensitive sites for new housing - a big issue for many people living in West Berkshire.

Labour's policies for tackling empty homes have not worked and the recession has made matters worse here in Reading.

Parts of West Reading empty homes are a real problem: notably Battle where there is a particularly problem of empty flats above empty shops.

I know from my campaigning in Redlands how an empty house can also blight an area - as in the case of 35 Christchurch Road - a source of frustration to residents for miles around.

Often the reason people leaves their homes empty is because is it cheaper for them to do so. Under the proposals outlined by Nick Clegg today, people who own these homes will get a grant or a cheap loan to renovate them so they can be used: grants if the home is for social housing, loans for private use.

I am delighted Nick Clegg has put action to tackle empty homes at the heart of the Lib Dem manifesto for the upcoming elections and I look forward to seeing how it goes down on the doorstep.

Check out this video for more info: