October 22, 2012  

Tory Housing Policy – Wandsworth style

Wandsworth Tories, along with quite a few other Councils, some Labour as well as Tory, I am afraid, continue to attack the security and stability of council housing. Only last week (17/10/12) they decided to introduce short-term tenancies. Short-term is defined as 5 year limited tenancy agreements.

There are many problems with this policy, which superficially is designed to increase mobility on council estates and free up properties for those in genuine housing need. After all, it is argued, the housing is allocated in the first place on the basis of need, usually lack of money or overcrowding of families, and the only case for moving tenants out after 5 years is that their need might have become less.

The argument presumably goes that if family circumstances have changed then the family no longer needs the letting and the letting should be freed up for new, deserving cases. But this creates some very perverse incentives. Assuming the tenants have established themselves and are putting down roots in their community and don’t want to be evicted from their homes for the last 5 years, then their logical course of action would be to ensure that they do not earn any more money or they increase their family size.

We have all heard the standard Tory complaint that working class girls only get pregnant so that they can get a council house and that many tenants are in effect work-shy layabouts. But right now in Wandsworth, and across the country, policies are being introduced, which almost demand pregnancies or avoidance of promotion or overtime working, in order to avoid eviction.

In order to carry out the policy, the Council will require staff, whose main function will be to check that tenants are not getting too wealthy. The Tory claim that Labour encourages the nanny state will look pathetic in comparison with the snooping, busy-bodying council they wish to create. And the objective? To create a transient population with no incentive to develop within their local community or a pauperised one with no ability or maybe desire to do so? Surely not!

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About Tony Belton

Labour Councillor for Latchmere Ward 1972-2022, now Battersea Park Ward, London Borough of Wandsworth Ever hopeful Spurs supporter; Lane visit to the Lane, 1948 Olympics. Why don't they simply call the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, The Lane? Once understood IT but no longer

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