Are ‘affordable’ homes really that affordable?

Recent government policy alongside the fallout from the COVID crisis are resulting in rises in domestic heating costs, increases in National Insurance contributions and escalating food prices.

The future is certainly bleak for many in the population.

However, there is another area of increasing concern which was already with us long before the pandemic and which has not yet been adequately addressed. This is the ongoing housing crisis.

Slough has a shrinking stock of council houses.

This is due to the fact that when

Margaret Thatcher’s government brought in the ‘right to buy’ in the 1980s, most of the money went back to the government and was never intended to fund more houses.

The loss of such an important social asset was an absolute tragedy and disgrace affecting the lives of millions of people. The sell-off led to further changes and problems.

Many councils transferred control of their remaining council houses to housing associations, many of which fared very well financially as private businesses although often to the detriment of the tenants themselves.

The housing stock was all but sacrificed in the name of profit.

In the 2019 General Election, the Labour manifesto pledged to build 100,000 council houses a year.

In the last year for which data is available and under the Tory government, only 6,000 were built and not by the government.

The main part of the Tory housing strategy is building ‘affordable’ houses.

We have heard of so called ‘affordable’ houses in Slough being priced at

£290,000 which the average Slough resident is unlikely to be able to afford.

So we ask ourselves affordable to whom?

The national median wage is approximately £31k according to the ONS (Office for National Statistics) and the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) study found that rates of poverty in working households increased to a new high of 17 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, equivalent to more than one in six households.

Perhaps Slough’s ‘affordable’ homes are being taken up by people moving out of London because they cannot afford to buy there. So local people, and particularly young people, lose out and are left bereft of somewhere to live themselves.

Private renters often have short contracts and are vulnerable to eviction.

Waiting lists for homes are lengthening year on year so it is clear that little fundamental progress is being made

If you look around Slough, there are many flats for sale and to rent. But we do not need these; we need council houses.

In recent years, Slough had again built council houses and negotiated for homes provision, including social housing, in big developments.

Sadly, the current financial difficulties have stopped this.

But the aim was to continue a policy which had worked so well and for so many people. Council housing, not affordable housing, should be back on the table as a government priority.

MARGERY THOROGOOD Secretary, Slough & District TUC