Council hamstrung on housing policy

DEAR Editor, As a member of the Green Party, I am very happy that my party believes that all in our society have a right to decent housing. I was therefore very pleased to see Neil Elkes’ Agenda article ( Post, November 23) which concentrated on Birmingham’s housing needs.

As we have learnt, building more houses does not necessarily mean that everybody’s housing needs are met. Neil highlighted some of the issues involved. However, he failed to mention affordable housing, social housing and privately rented housing.

Part of the problem is that most housing built in Birmingham in recent years has not been affordable, whilst a lot of privately rented housing has been very expensive and poorly facilitated. Another issue is that for years Tory governments have prevented Birmingham City Council from building more council houses, severely restricting the its ability to borrow the money needed to fund housing, while encouraging older better-off people to buy their council houses.

Tory governments have also relaxed planning legislation. A perfect, and utterly disgraceful, illustration of this is here in Quinton. Former Labour Council Leader Albert Bore agreed to the council selling off a much-needed public educational and community resource, the Martineau Education Centre to Persimmon. Initially the sale came with a condition that Persimmon would make about a quarter of the houses “affordable”. However in the end the developer found ways of avoiding this commitment.

It is then hardly surprising that the housing needs of people living in Birmingham are not being met. Peter Beck, Quinton, Birmingham