Party People - October 2016

With the Brexit saga rolling on and on without seemingly moving forward; With increasingly disappointing education results being addressed by simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic (by re-introducing grammar schools whilst not providing all pupils in all schools in all subjects with fully and properly qualified teachers), one wonders whether there is anything local authorities can do to genuinely improve the lot of the people they supposedly represent.

A seriously burning issue felt both locally and nationally is that of housing, lacking both in supply and in many instances, disgustingly in quality.

Government talks of building more affordable housing (to buy, not to rent). One asks; affordable to whom? People on zero hour contracts have no hope of raising a mortgage and people in privately rented accommodation at exorbitant levels of rent have no hope of raising a deposit. They remain trapped in the private rented market with no access to 'right-to-buy' schemes and in far too many instances, in a property unfit for human occupation. Rogue landlords (Rachmanism lives on) are allowed to get away with it.

Local authorities could and should do two things. Firstly, build primarily over the next five years, affordable quality social housing for rent and secondly, address and regulate the private rented sector landlords, insisting all such landlords be licenced, such licences being subject to all individual residential properties within their portfolios being inspected and registered as fit for human occupation, in addition to which there ought to be the implementation of a 'fair-rents act'.

The situation as it stands has nothing to do with immigration from overseas, as some would have us believe, but much to do with both local and central government inertia over many years. It's time to do something about it.