20 July 2007
Campaigners for better council housing should not stand in the way of families who wish to own their own home, a leading trade unionist has warned.
Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, said local authorities and trade unions should recognise the attraction of home ownership while continuing to support tenants who prefer to rent.
'To be a champion of council housing is not to be an enemy of young men and women who want to buy their home,' he told Defend Council Housing's annual conference in London on July 12.
Speaking 24 hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a significant increase in house building during the next decade, Dromey added that councils must recognise mistakes made in the past.
'Not all council housing has been good council housing. There have been too many nightmare estates that were badly planned with poor facilities,' he added. 'We should be able to walk down the streets in our towns and cities and not be able to tell which homes are council and which are private.'
Earlier Labour MP Austin Mitchell said he had never felt more optimistic about DCH achieving its aim of direct investment in council housing. All candidates in Labour's recent deputy leader campaign had indicated their support for the 'fourth option', including Hazel Blears, the new communities and local government secretary, he said.
Mitchell, who chairs the House of Commons' council housing group, called for a moratorium on stock transfers to housing associations – including those where a ballot has been held – because the financial climate facing local authorities is changing.
The prime minister confirmed at Labour's national policy forum, held on July 14, that councils will play an important role in house building. Details will be spelled out next week in a green paper from the Department for Communities and Local Government.
The Chartered Institute of Housing, meanwhile, is joining forces with Oxford Brookes University to carry out a one-year study into the supply of land for affordable housing on behalf of the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships.
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