Labour group enlist Housing Minister Beckett to prove point to council
Feb 19 2009 by Neil Elkes, Birmingham Post
Government housing minister Margaret Beckett has been invited to Birmingham in a bid to force a relaxation in the rules on council house building.
The invitation has come from the council’s opposition Labour group who say that Birmingham’s plans to bring back council housing, announced two weeks ago, do not go far enough.
Labour housing spokesman Coun Mike Leddy yesterday claimed the pledge to build 500 homes a year would not dent the 30,000-strong waiting list for council houses.
He also claimed they were not really council houses as they would be managed by a housing trust – a move dreamt up by the City Council to avoid paying rent revenue tax to the Government.
Instead Coun Leddy (Lab, Brandwood) is calling on the Government to relax the laws on council house building.
He said: “I am talking to Government, in light of the economic situation and the large number of families on the waiting list for a home here in Birmingham.
“I have asked them to provide the powers and finance to embark on a programme of council house building capable of addressing the housing crisis in Birmingham.
“I am also inviting Margaret Beckett, Minister for Housing and Planning, to come to Birmingham to meet both tenants and families on the waiting list, to hear at first hand their concerns.”
His comments come after the council’s Conservative housing boss John Lines unveiled plans to restart the mass building of council homes in Birmingham for the first time in two decades at the rate of 500 per year. Coun Lines (Cons, Bartley Green) said they were rolling back the clock 20 years to bring back council house building on a scale not seen since Margaret Thatcher introduced the right to buy and stopped councils investing in new homes during the 1980s.
He said: “We need hundreds, if not thousands, of new homes to satisfy the demand and needs of our citizens.”
The council housing department has about 100 acres of land ripe for development but with the housing market falling they are unable to sell to private developers.
Officers are looking to finance the building of homes at the rate of 500 a year.
But unlike traditional council houses these would be run by a Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust, an arm’s length organisation set up to manage the homes but still owned by the city council.
This enables the council to avoid Housing Revenue Account payments which will see £56 million of the rent, about £17 per teanant, handed back to the Government for redistribution to other authorities.
Only last month the government launched a white paper consultation on council houses but it could take years before any changes become law.
