JohnDear Editor, The announcement that long standing rent to buy is set to be abolished is overall a positive for local councils, however in the short term there is concern that it could lead to a short term decrease in the number of council houses because of a surge in rent to buy applications before they are abolished.
At a recent Leeds City Council comittee meeting, policy papers (which can be found on LCC’s meetings calender website) described how over 2,000 applications have been received to LCC from people asking to purchase properties from the Council.
While this is good for working class home-ownership, it could mean a 4% reduction in the number of social homes on the market at a time of ever-rising waiting lists.
As a silver lining, the money raised from selling off this last tranche of rent-to-buy housing will allow the construction of new housing by leveraging the capital raised from the sale with funding streams from organisations such as Homes England, the Environmental Agency, and Mayor Tracy Brabin’s West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) brownfield housing funds.
In order to not just hit the government’s new housing targets but to replace the considerably reduced council housing stock will require significantly increased levels of housebuilding in Leeds, and indeed for other councils across the UK.
While we wait for these houses to be built, perhaps some floors of the new multi-story student flats around Leeds City Centre could be converted to Council flats via modifications to planning permission requirements or some form of public-private partnership overseen by WYCA to plug the gap and reduce the more than 20,000 long council house waiting list in Leeds alone.
Our local and regional authorities must provide the homes which are desperately needed by local people.
– Cllr Tyler Callum Wilson-Kerr
Aberford & District Parish Council,
Sturton Grange Ward,
Garforth.
