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Housing Minister Caroline Flint, who is due to visit Brinnington today
Housing Minister slams council's housing
Exclusive by Peter Devine, reporting from the Labour Party Conference.24/ 9/2008
A TOP Government minister has criticised Stockport Council for not providing enough family accommodation in the borough.
In an exclusive interview, Housing Minister Caroline Flint said the local authority had a duty to try to build more family homes.
Ms Flint, who visits an Equity Housing scheme in Brinnington this morning (Wednesday), said: "In Stockport there are thousands of people on Stockport Homes’ waiting list for social housing, and while the authority is meeting its targets, it is mainly one and two bedroomed apartments, which are unsuited to many families’ needs.
"It’s about having the right three and four bedroomed homes for families and the government has pumped a lot of money into shared equity schemes, but we have to have the right packages in return. We have to do everything we can to keep young people in places like Stockport otherwise we will have dying communities. When I come to Stockport, I will be very interested to see if the local authority is facing its challenge and its responsibility to provide affordable homes."
Stockport MP Ann Coffey, who will accompany the minister, said: "Our problem in Stockport is that when the mortgage problem goes away, we won’t have enough land to build affordable houses. I am not advocating getting rid of Green Belt Land but there’s 8,000 people on the social housing list in Stockport who are absolutely dependent on the council. At the moment they are in private, highly-priced rented accommodation but because of high rents - which are often paid for by the taxpayer and are going into the pockets of landlords - it’s not sustainable for them in the future.
"As everyone knows social housing rents tend to be lower and people have security of tenure. The answer is for the planning committee and the council to use their planning powers more flexibly for limited building on Green Belt."
Ms Flint said in future the onus, under new government targets, would be on local authorities building more three and four bedroomed houses if they were to qualify for Government grant funding.
Ms Flint is due to be accompanied on her visit to Brinnington today by Stockport MP Ann Coffey.
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