Why homes Rescue scheme is needed
SIR – Letter writer Peter Bell wrote to express his concern that the scheme I launched with David Cameron recently. The Empty Property Rescue scheme is designed to get some of the record 1.8 million families languishing on the housing waiting lists into
SIR - Letter writer Peter Bell wrote to express his concern that the scheme I launched with David Cameron recently.
The Empty Property Rescue scheme is designed to get some of the record 1.8 million families languishing on the housing waiting lists into the one million empty homes in Britain today.
Mr Bell's concern was that we would somehow be asking people to live in "uninhabitable" houses. This is absolutely not the case.
What we have said is that if these homes are good enough for private rent or sale, then with so many homeless on record waiting lists, it's more important to provide a decent roof over someone's head, than to worry about whether they conform to the more stringent space and other standards applied to social housing.
You may also want to watch:
In fact, it might surprise your readers to learn that a home which is considered perfectly good enough for someone to purchase or rent privately, may not be legally considered okay for someone desperately in need of affordable rented housing.
Our scheme would relax these restrictive rules for the purposes of this Empty Property Rescue programme only and the houses which are brought back into use would have housing associations or councils as landlords.
Most Read
- 1 Sky Studios Elstree starts recruitment drive ahead of planned 2022 opening
- 2 9 questions to decide how Welwyn Garden City you are!
- 3 Rural land near Welwyn to go on sale next month
- 4 £45m housing development to be showcased as buyers get chance to select home
- 5 When do the clocks go back in 2021 and British Summer Time ends?
- 6 Residents and councillors react to Lloyds Bank closure
- 7 Log thrown through hairdressers' window in Knebworth
- 8 Primary school receives award for excellence in science education
- 9 Explore Hertford Castle at free open day
- 10 Serial flasher who 'showed no remorse' jailed
Labour has built fewer affordable homes in every one of its 12 years in office than the last Conservative government built each year.
That lack of housing has led to massive waiting lists.
If I become housing minister then I'm not prepared to allow rules and regulations which help keep properties empty, while many go without a decent roof over their heads, to get in the way of tackling the all time high housing waiting list that is, I'm afraid, Labour's legacy.
Grant Shapps MP
Welwyn Hatfield.
