Out and about on the Lennox estate and Woking Close

I've spent the past week talking to residents of the Lennox estate and Woking Close, with the help of a large - and growing - campaign team of volunteers.

These are two estates at the top of Priory Lane by Upper Richmond Road, right on the edge of Barnes Common and East Sheen.

A huge range of issues were raised including the visibility of the Roehampton Safer Neighbourhood Police team; problems with public transport and traffic congestion in the area; homelessness and unacceptable overcrowding caused by the council selling off half the affordable rented homes locally without replacing hardly any of them; and the usual, valid complaints about the poor quality of estate cleaning by the Conservative Council's bargain-basement contractor.

Curiously enough, the moment word got round that I was about to spend a week talking to people in the area the Conservatives showed up - a coincidence no doubt. If my visiting an area is what it takes to get the Tories to take an interest in it too all well and good - it's the residents that will hopefully benefit. But yet again we see the stark contrast between my local leadership and the Conservatives following along behind.

Tory rent rises, Labour rent reductions

Cutting Council rents

I've received dozens of complaints from Council tenants these past few weeks upset about the huge rent increase the Conservatives have brought in.

Despite it's low tax image, Wandsworth in fact has the second highest council rents in London and year after year increases them by inflation-busting amounts. In fact it's increasing charges for communal heating systems by a shocking 15.6% this year.

I find it perverse that the Conservatives are cranking up rents for council tenants - many of whom are on fixed and low incomes - while at the same time demanding more help from Government.

That's why I hoped Wandsworth would leap at the news that our Labour government is providing funds to halve the rent increases being proposed nationwide. The average rent increase in England this year is 6.2% - with Labour the increase will be reduced to 3.1%.

But Wandsworth Conservatives don't seem to want to pass this money onto tenants. When I wrote to the council in February to check that they would be taking the money and cutting rents for local residents the best I could get was a "we're waiting for more information."

What an incredibly underwhelming response, that will be of very little comfort to hard-pressed council tenants. The facts are these:

Each autumn, after consultation, the Government publishes formal guideline rents so that Local Authorities know where they stand on Government subsidy on the housing funding system. Authorities are then free to make their own decisions on the actual rent level to set in their particular circumstances. Many authorities choose to set actual rents below the guideline figure. Wandsworth is never among them.

Last year, the Government was pressed to give authorities greater financial certainty and responded by giving guidance for two years rather than one – which authorities appeared to welcome. However, since recent major changes in the economic situation, the Government has agreed to reconsider the 2 year deal. And this is the result.

I want Wandsworth Conservatives to stop squeezing Council tenants until the pips squeek. It's time to pass on Labour's rent cut.

Meeting Margaret Beckett to discuss Putney's housing concerns

Last week I got the chance to meet with the new housing minister and former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett MP in Westminster.

Housing is my number one campaign priority in Putney; a priority made all the more urgent by our current economic environment. While the Conservatives keep piling up unsellable luxury apartment flats, I'm arguing for many more affordable homes for rent - to replace the 16,000 that have been sold off by the Tory council in the past 30 years.

Last year I met with then housing minister Caroline Flint to make sure Putney's housing priorities are heard at the heart of government - and I'm pleased to report that Margaret Beckett was as receptive to the case I presented to her as Caroline was.

The Conservatives oppose Labour's help for homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages - they would do nothing. They oppose the building of affordable housing - they would rather sell it off and price local people out of Putney. And Tory councils like Wandsworth have refused to use the powers the government has given them to step in and take over the mortgages of those who are about to lose their homes: yet more evidence that they couldn't care less about housing.

Councils can start building affordable homes again

Our Labour Government is lifting restrictions on councils being able to build new affordable homes.

This is a real challenge for Wandsworth Council, which has made an awful lot about the 200 "hidden homes" it has built in the last five or so years and now has the chance to show us how committed it really is to building affordable homes.

On the one hand we do have the 200 hidden homes - an excellent initiative but always limited in how many homes they can build because they're units built on existing estates where bin-sheds and garages once were.

On the other, they've sold off over 16,000 council homes, something that has caused massive homelessness and housing shortages and has destroyed estates as stable communities have become buy-to-let, high-turnover ghettos.

Now, instead of just having to search around for the odd space where a home could be fitted, useful amounts of affordable homes could be built in Putney.

Housing Minister Margaret Beckett said this when launching the new scheme:

"We are determined to help keep house building going in the current climate, as the long term need for more homes is not going to disappear. These new freedoms will encourage councils to play a bigger role in driving forward the delivery of new affordable homes for families in housing need."


This is a good first step. But we need to cut away a lot more of the red tape that stops councils building affordable homes for rent.

Tories to close Newlands Hall

In the Autumn of 2007, the Conservative Council announced plans to close Newlands Hall - the community hall in the middle of the Putney Vale estate in Roehampton.

The Tories claimed that the hall was too dilapidated for them to - as they see it - waste money on refurbishment (despite being responsible for allowing it to fall into such shameful disrepair).

Over 100 residents of the estate signed a petition of mine opposing the closure and this duly was discussed by councillors on 15 November 2007 - the link is here (scroll down to item 19).



As you can see from the minutes of the meeting openly available on the council website, as a result of the petition the Tories promised to consult residents again before determining the fate of Newlands Hall.

A few days ago, Putney Vale residents found out by chance that Newlands Hall was being closed on 31 January. No consultation has taken place with the estate. And the reason they're closing the Hall? They've apparently given it to a group that they're kicking out of Heathmere School on the Alton Estate.

This is outrageous dishonesty by Wandsworth Conservatives. They have a track record of neglecting Putney Vale - cancelling work, ignoring problems like traffic travelling to and from Hall School, anti social behaviour and flytipping, axing funding for the Youth Club in Stag House and now they've blatantly broken another promise to the estate.

Shame on them.

My archive of this saga can be read here.

Wandsworth's Housing Benefit scandal

This weekend's Sunday Times featured on its front page a story about next-door Conservative-run Kensington & Chelsea council putting a homeless family in a £2 million townhouse that costs taxpayers more than £91,000 a year in Housing Benefit payouts .

Look at the detail of the story, and you find Wandsworth comes fifth in the league table for such absurd, unnecessary and totally unjustified benefit payouts, with Housing Benefit of up to £4,193 a month being doled out locally.

Following the Government's recently announced changes to Jobseekers' Allowance, Housing Benefit remains the last unreformed benefit - and one that is being exploited by Wandsworth Conservatives to the detriment of taxpayers.

Housing Benefit is paid by central Government - the council isn't responsible for administering it or paying for it. But Wandsworth is the largest landlord - by far -in our borough with over 16,000 council homes. A large proportion of council tenants (but by no means all) are eligible for Housing Benefit, which can either cover 100% of the rent, or in most cases a proportion depending on what other income you have.

Local Conservatives have seen these housing benefit payments as a source of extra funding for them and so the have ramped up council rents to among the highest in London. In pushing up their rents, they are actually making more people eligible for Housing Benefit and so worsening welfare dependency and increasing the bill taxpayers have to pick up. That they are also squeezing those tenants not eligible for Housing Benefit but hardly wealthy is not an issue that bothers them either.

But it should bother you because, ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether it's central or local government that pays the Housing Benefit bill - it's still you and I as taxpayers that pay the bill. How likely do you believe it would be that Wandsworth's rents would start falling sharply if the council had to find the money to pay for Housing Benefit itself?

The Taxpayers' Alliance said this in respect of the Kensington case: "The Council must work harder to find affordable accommodation and to more to stop greedy landlords from exploiting taxpayers' generosity." In Wandsworth's case, not only is the council doing everything it can to reduce affordable accommodation but it is also the greedy landlord.

Wentworth Court arson attack

Twelve flats in Wentworth Court on Garratt Lane, part of the Arndale estate in Wandsworth town, were badly damaged by fire in the early hours of Saturday.

Fortunately, no one was killed in the attack, which fire investigators have now said was deliberate.

Anyone with information should call Wandsworth CID in confidence on 020 8247 8734.

I will be writing to the Council Housing Department for information about the state of the twelve flats that have been affected and to make sure that there was no structural damage done to the block - one of the largest in the constituency - by the fire.

Wentworth Court is the nearer half of the long, lower-rise yellow and grey blocks in the picture above.

More right to buy - are you kidding?!

Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith has done a lot since he lost the leadership of his party a few years ago. He has carved out a very clear interest in, and concern for, inequality and has set up a think-tank called the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) that focuses on it. I respect Mr Duncan Smith's commitment to the issues he is now working on, but unfortunately, I believe too often he tries to make problems fit his right-wing outlook instead of challenging whether his beliefs would actually make a difference to the problem.

As an example of this, yesterday the CSJ published a report arguing that the key to lifting council tenants out of poverty is a greater incentive to buy their home. This is exactly the same idea that the Conservatives implemented nearly 30 years ago when they came up with their Right to Buy council homes plan.

The intervening years have shown that while Right to Buy was a popular policy and for some provided a means of upward mobility, it has caused many more problems than it has solved.

Today's CSJ report claims that right-to-buy stops estates becoming ghettos. In fact, right to buy has actually made estates ghettos. That's because so many of those who bought then moved out and let out their homes on mainly short-term lets. The result was that the community collapsed: new tenants move in and out every six months to a year or so; those who occupy the properties care far less about the environment they live in because they'll only be here for a few months, and those who haven't bought their homes find it far harder to get an appropriate property because the council housing stock has been decimated.

And what also makes estates ghettos is the lack of pride landlords take in maintaining their properties. Both Wandsworth Council and many buy-to-let homeowners are failing in that responsibility resulting in shabby estates and run-down homes.

So what Iain Duncan Smith has done is recycle a totemic 30 year-old policy and ignore the subsequent three decades of practical experience of it not working as the Tories originally hoped. Instead he should, surely, have challenged his belief in that policy and at least acknowledged that it has had drawbacks as well as successes?

At the root of the Tory approach to housing is a completely misguided belief that it is housing tenure that makes a difference to one's life chances. By repeatedly insisting that home owners are somehow more worthy, virtuous and successful than tenants, they have only stigmatised one perfectly valid, very large group of people. They do precisely the same thing in respect of marriage when they preach that anyone unmarried is unworthy to raise children.

The issue is not whether someone owns or rents their home - in fact it is utterly irrelevant - it is whether they have a decent job, got a good education, were raised in a supportive, structured family and have decent, loyal friends. For Conservatives, that just doesn't compute: they have a single idea: ever more home ownership and if it doesn't work, it's simply because it hasn't been implemented radically enough. Well, nowhere has right to buy been pursued as radically - and rabidly - as Wandsworth and the housing problem here is worse than in any neighbouring borough.

Unless the Conservatives learn from the mistakes they have made in Wandsworth, they will be doomed to repeat them. The problem with today's Tory report is that they have things backwards and have failed to learn a thing.

Wandsworth's housing record the worst in London

London's Labour Assembly members are warning that the Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson, will not be able to deliver the 50,000 affordable homes London desperately needs.

Nicky Gavron, who was Deputy Mayor of London and before that chaired the London Planning Advisory Committee - someone with a massive amount of experience in planning in the capital said:

"The impact of the credit crunch on every aspect of the housing sector cannot be underestimated - yet the demand for housing, particularly affordable rented housing - has never been higher. Over a third of a million Londoners are waiting for affordable housing yet the Mayor's housing adviser has made it clear they will not impose any target for rented homes on London councils.

"Without political leadership and direction from the Mayor, the record of many London councils in office shows that they fail to deliver affordable housing for their residents. Wandsworth has almost 9,000 people waiting yet delivered just 20 new homes. This is their record and it is just pitiful. If anything the Mayor is giving boroughs like Wandsworth even less incentive to deliver.

"Of course we should be helping people get on the housing ladder and encourage low-income ownership schemes, but the stark fact is there are over 9,000 low-cost homes lying unsold and empty - the bulk of which are in London. Until the housing market stabilises and there are mortgages available, these homes will stay empty and unsold. At the same time, Londoners are crying out for low-cost homes for rent.

"The Mayor is kicking away the first rung of the ladder for the thousands of Londoners on housing waiting lists. These lists are only going to increase in the next few years."

I couldn't agree more with this - and it is telling that Wandsworth is being named and shamed as the worst provider of affordable homes for rent. Remember this devastating fact: in 1981 there were over 32,000 council homes for rent locally - today there are barely 16,000.

How to treat 85 year old war veterans, by Wandsworth Council

Last week I wrote to the Housing Department about an 85 year old war veteran in West Hill with serious health problems whose bedroom keeps getting flooded because of leaks from the flat of the council tenant above him. His bedspread is now a tarpaulin, his carpet squelches with the water it has absorbed and his insurance premiums have soared because he keeps having to claim to repair the damage he had no hand in causing. I know this because I visited and saw for myself on Saturday.

My constituent had repeatedly asked the council to sort out the leaks but no action had been taken. I was happy to step in to see if I could help him out. Yesterday I got a reply from the Housing Department. Here's what they wrote:

"Mr X is a leaseholder. Therefore, regardless of his age, health or military experience he is responsible for carrying out any works within his property...I do not feel that the fact that I was unable to agree to Mr X's suggestion means that I, or anyone else in this team, have been inconsiderate or uncaring and I do not feel that an apology is necessary. The responsibility to repair the damage lies with him."

Well, that may be the sort of reply Putney's Conservative MP, or the three Conservative Councillors for West Hill might find acceptable, but I don't.

Wandsworth Council is renowned for seeking to claim back all costs to its property caused by others - and rightly so. Now the boot is on the other foot and suddenly repeated damage to a war veteran's home caused from a property they own is "nothing to do with us gov".

I've got news for them: it is and I'm not going to stop until they honour their responsibilities and show a little bit more respect to someone who served their country and never asked for any help from anyone, until now. Look at the way the Tories respond: contemptibly.

Roehampton redevelopment planning news

The Council has published its planning news booklet alerting us to the application they have submitted to themselves (!) to redevelop Roehampton.

It should be delivered to all homes in Roehampton at the very least - look out for it; it looks like this>

The first thing that grabbed me was the image the council have put on the front page, supposedly a representation of what the development will look like. I've enlarged it below so you can really get a good look at it.

Amazing, isn't it?

Through this one development, Roehampton has suddently become a rural idyll. Children playing happily. No anti-social behaviour. Birds flying above.
...And not a car in sight! Remarkable, given that these plans will increase traffic catastrophically - sending thousands of shopper cars and articulated lorries down Danebury Avenue. Yet not a single car, bus or lorry in the illustration.

And also, look at all the grass! More grass, in fact than exists there now - when in reality the council intends to concrete over the grass and trees that are there now.



The Conservatives are perpetrating nothing less than a mass deception. They failed to adequately consult residents, sneakily staging an exhibition hardly anyone knew about in the middle of the Summer holidays. They steamrollered the results of that consultation through committee a few weeks later. They ignored Roehampton residents at the recent so called "listening to you" meeting. And now they're deliberately misrepresenting their plans.

We have until 08 December to make our views known to the council about this application. Since my own consultation at the start of September, the economic situation has made this crazy plan even less viable. If you want to have your say, here's how:

• Write to: Planning Service, Wandsworth Town Hall, London SW18 2PU
• Email: planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk
• Phone: Neil Shaw, the planning officer for this case on 020 8871 6632
• Fax: 020 8871 6003

Please quote planning application number: 2008/4552

The Council's planning page, where all the plans and responses can be found is here.

Cleaned every week..?

For the third time in just over a month, I've had to write to Wandsworth Council about the state of the Alton estate.

At last week's Roehampton Council report-back, residents spent the first half of the meeting berating councillors and housing department officers over the poor quality of the cleaning service.

At that point, I'd already received two replies from the Council insisting that every block on the Alton was cleaned once a week - you can download the schedule of cleaning chores they say should be carried out here. I wrote a few days ago on this blog why, even if that were the case, big blocks like those on Highcliffe Drive need far more cleaning than small ones.

Well, this weekend my campaign team and I were out and about in Highcliffe Drive - again - to see whether the reality lived up to the council's rhetoric. The photo above - and all the others here - show that it does not. And these were from just three of the five blocks Binley House, Charcot House and Dunbridge House!

And it's no excuse to say that the major redecoration work to these blocks has hampered cleaning - I'm sure it has but the stains, the dust, the damage to rubbish chutes, the flytipping and the general grubbiness prove that these areas have been in this state for weeks, months - maybe even years.

On this evidence, I think residents would be grateful for their block to be cleaned even the once a week the council says it is.



























.....

More help for Putney homeowners

Today the Government announced new rules to help protect homeowners who may be facing the threat of repossession. New court protocols will help make repossessions a last resort not a default response, and the Government is proposing that companies engaged in sale and rent back schemes - which can often target vulnerable home owners - should be properly regulated.

Lenders will now be expected to demonstrate that they have tried to discuss and agree alternatives to repossession when borrowers get into trouble with their mortgage repayments. If a case reaches court, lenders will be required to tell the court precisely what they have done to comply with the protocol. The expansion of free legal representation in courts for households at risk of repossession and an increase in free debt advice will also help protect those most in need.

This is exactly the help we need to make sure there is help for those Putney, Roehampton & Southfields homeowners who might be hardest hit in the tougher times ahead, ensuring repossession is the last resort not the first.

It is right to ensure that every avenue has been explored before lenders seek to repossess homes. And now the public has a major stake in several of the biggest mortgage lenders, it is also right that the people's priorities are addressed in the Boardroom.

For more information on the package, click here.

Council spends thousands renting homes it once owned

I'm writing a lot at the moment about the serious problems caused by the over-zealous way the Tories have imposed their right-to-buy policy on Putney, Roehampton and Southfields:

• It's pushed house prices up artificially
• It's deprived local families of much-needed affordable housing
• The huge subsidies involved have lost local taxpayers millions
• It's turned once strong communities into transient buy-to-let conveyor-belts
• It's made anti-social behaviour worse as the transient residents have far less commitment to and interest in the area they are only part of for a few months: more noise, more fly-tipping, more overcrowding.

But let me give you a direct example I've encountered in the past few days that anyone who is a Council Taxpayer in Putney should be outraged about.

Dowdeswell Close is part of the Lennox Council estate off Priory Lane in Roehampton. Wandsworth's Tory Council is now renting a property it used to own there at £1,300 a month. If those being housed in such properties don't have the income to pay this level of rent then the difference is made up in Housing Benefit, which you and I pay for.

All because the Conservative Council have sold off over half the council homes in our borough.

This isn't the only example: right across Wandsworth there are hundreds and hundreds of former council homes now being rented back by the Council for use as temporary accommodation to help them cope with the huge housing crisis the Conservatives have brought on themselves. And this voodoo financing is costing taxpayers an absolute fortune.

The Conservatives pride themselves on financial prudence. They certainly aren't showing it in their incompetent housing policies.

Last night's Roehampton report-back

Over 80 Roehampton residents braved the rain to attend the report-back meeting last night. The big issues, as you might expect, were Roehampton redevelopment, the Council/TfL no right turns from Roehampton Lane and the state of the Alton estate.

I myself have been increasingly concerned about the cleanliness of the estate: I've written to the Director of Housing twice about this in recent weeks. Part of the reason for the mess is that the contract doesn't seem to be being honoured - I heard from someone in Farlington Place only today that her block has been cleaned just three times since August.

But there's another reason. The Council set out in its cleaning contract that every block on the Alton has to be cleaned once a week. Not unreasonable on the face of it, is it? But consider this. Arnewood Close has six flats in each block. Each of the five Highcliffe Drive blocks has 75 maisonettes in it - probably easily over 100 residents in each. They're both supposed to be cleaned the same.

Isn't it self-evident that a big block which has hundreds of comings-and-goings every day needs more cleaning than a small block? And it's such a waste, because the Highcliffe Drive blocks have just been redecorated: the council's spent tens of thousands repainting and smartening them up, but because its cleaning contract is insufficient, these blocks are already looking grubby.

The Conservative councillors for Roehampton told residents that they hold regular walkabouts on the Alton. I leave you with the response of one of the residents from the estate: "Are you doing your surveys with your eyes closed and your noises pinched?"

They must be.

Tory Mayor is going to miss affordable housing targets

Imagine my shock: the Tory Mayor of London has started preparing the ground for an admission that he isn't going to meet the far from challenging target for affordable housing that Ken Livingstone left him.

Yesterday a panel of housing experts called before the London Assembly all forecast that building 50,000 affordable homes by 2011 - which may sound a lot but works out at just 520 per borough per year - isn't achievable.

My response is: of course it is; it just isn't achievable by continuing with the policy of tacking affordable homes onto much larger private developments as an afterthought. Building a handful of affordable homes in return for being allowed massive overdevelopment is only a relatively recent phenomenon born of the Thatcher Government's ban on councils building homes. Prior to that, councils and housing associations were able to - and did - build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes.

In fairness, the experts that gave evidence to the London Assembly came closer than I have ever seen in admitting this: they said that because of the housing downturn £4 billion earmarked for new housebuilding should be targeted on affordable rented homes. Of course it should.

The Mayor's Housing advisor, Richard Blakeway, came up with this piece of bluster that even Boris would be proud of:

"We are asking the Housing and Communities agency to develop innovative models for delivery in the capital to meet new circumstances."

Anyone who can translate that into plain English please send me your answers on a postcard. It's utter tosh: we don't need "innovative models for delivery" - we need Councils like Wandsworth to stop sitting on millions and millions built up from the right-to-buy sales they've pursued so damagingly and start building new affordable homes. They could start tomorrow if they wanted.

But they don't and won't, and we now have a Tory Mayor who lacks the interest or ability to force them too. Look out folks: Wandsworth's catastropic housing policy is about to be applied across the whole capital.

Redevelopment survey: what Roehampton REALLY thinks

As the illustration above shows, there's been a fantastic response to my consultation on the Council's plans to redevelop the top end of Danebury Avenue. Nearly five times as many people completed my survey than bothered to return the council's "heads they win, tails you lose" survey in the library at the end of July.

I've published a detailed report on the results of the survey: you can download a copy here.

I have news for the Council. On not one single aspect of their new plans for Roehampton do they have a local mandate to proceed. Yes, people think Danebury Avenue can - should - be better. Yes, they would like to see some investment in the area. But no, not at any price, and certainly not at the price being demanded by the Conservative Council. Among the key findings:

• 91% oppose building on the green space at the top of Danebury Avenue beside the library
  
• 72% demand that all or most of any new homes built here be affordable
  
• 66%, when forced to choose between the Council’s plan for a supermarket that would send hundreds of lorries and cars down Danebury Avenue or no supermarket at all, say no to extra traffic
  
• Even on the one issue the Council claims clear support for: the demolition of Allbrook House above the library, 45% said no to this in our survey, compared to 34% who agreed with the council

If we genuinely care about Roehampton; if our intent really is to provide better facilities and more opportunities for the Alton Estate and to better unite the Alton with Roehampton Village, then these findings cannot be ignored. Roehampton has spoken.

The Council must now listen and respond appropriately. It must suspend these plans as there is clearly no local support for them. It needs to return to the ideas it tore up earlier this year, upon which it has consulted more extensively. And it must look seriously at whether the best course is simply to renovate and redesign the existing buildings instead of its wasteful and unnecessary slash-and-burn approach.

Safe as houses

A few days ago, The Guardian published a big report on the impact of the Tories' Right-to_buy policy, 27 years after it was first introduced. You can read the report here.

Although the report focussed on Barking and Westminster, it applies equally to Roehampton, West Hill and Southfields.

Right-to-Buy was the flagship Thatcherite housing policy: it gave council tenants the right to purchase their home at discounted rates. The ethos of the policy was that people who owned their homes took more pride in them and the surrounding area. It also provided those who could afford to buy their homes - and in particular those in council houses, rather than flats - with a nest egg to leave to their children.

But there were several major flaws with right-to-buy and places like Roehampton are now suffering the effects. The first is that the Tories blocked the building of any new council homes for rent to replace those they sold off. This has created huge waiting lists for council housing, overcrowding and homelessness.

The second problem is that a lot of the homes that have been sold off are now owned by absentee landlords, bought during the buy-to-let boom. These are now leased to transient tenants (in Roehampton's case EU migrants and students), who stay put no longer than six months to a year - people who understandably have less commitment to or investment in the area or its community.

The thing Right-to-Buy was supposed to improve: the sense of pride in community, has actually been the thing it has damaged beyond measure. It's one of the reasons why, in response to my recent Roehampton redevelopment survey, around 80% of respondents felt that the area had changed for the worse.

It's also why I'm calling for a change in the law to require councils to replace every home they sell off with at least two for rent - to start repairing the huge loss of affordable homes we in Putney especially have suffered.

The Conservatives still don't understand the problems their policy created: they're committed to worsening it further by extending the right-to-buy to Housing Association tenants, and oppose the building of new council housing.

Take time to read the Guardian article - it sets out the issue in far more detail than I am able to in a post like this.

Roehampton survey: 230 replies and counting

I'd like to thank the 230 Roehampton residents who have taken the trouble of responding to my survey on the council's redevelopment plans. And there are still another 11 days before the deadline for replies, so I'm confident that we'll have many more before my consultation closes.

What's really gratifying is the amount of time and consideration most respondents have invested in their survey answers. As well as answering the questions honestly, the majority of those who have returned surveys have added additional comments, and I'll be publishing a few of these over the next few weeks.

Of course, 230 replies is more than ten times the number of people the Conservative Council managed to find to support their plans. I'm sure even they, in private, now recognise they made a major mistake failing to consult residents properly and then staging an exhibition hardly anyone knew about at the start of the Summer holidays.

Unfortunately, even when they do recognise privately that they have got things wrong, this arrogant administration rarely admits it in public, so expect them - whatever the results of my far more authoritative survey show - to steamroller on with their redevelopment scheme.

If you haven't responded yet, or haven't been in the area my surveys were delivered to (all of the Alton estate and Roehampton village) you can do so by visiting stuartking.net/consult

Housing help with Labour: a good first step

As someone who has made housing my No.1 priority I am delighted with the measures announced yesterday by the Labour Government.

They're a good first step with several more needed. I'm really pleased they build on several of the points in my housing action plan that I presented to Housing Minister Caroline Flint MP at the House of Commons earlier this year.

The level at which Stamp Duty becomes payable has been raised to £175,000. That's not enough to apply to that many homes in Putney and I've said the minimum level it should start at should be £250,000 in high price areas like London. But there are lots of homes in our area that do cost less than £175,000 and this will make things a little easier for those first-time buyers.

Next, the Government, working with major housing developers will provide loans of up to 30% of the value of a property, which don't need to be repaid for five years. This is a variant of the HomeBuy scheme I've been calling for - under my plan the loan would only be repaid when the property is sold but this is a fine alternative.

Third, Councils like Wandsworth will now have the ability to pay off someone's mortgage debt and in return set an affordable rent instead. This is a massive test for the Conservative Council which has more than halved the number of affordable homes for rent in Wandsworth - something that has massively worsened our local housing crisis. I very much doubt the Tories will suddenly u-turn and step in to help those under threat of losing their homes - but they should.

And finally the restrictions on councils being able to build new affordable homes have been lifted. There is now no excuse for the Conservatives to start repairing the damage they have done to affordable housing in Wandsworth.

In contrast, we learnt today that the completely unchanged Tories plan to spare the very richest Inheritance Tax - which will now apply to homes worth £2 million or less.

This is one of the key choices you will face at the next election: help for hard-pressed workers with Labour or tax breaks for the very richest under the Tories. Days like today, and choices like this are what make me Labour and proud of it.

Tell me your housing priorities with my local housing survey.

How about some hidden homes here?

I am today writing to the council suggesting that they should get these derelict former homes and disused garages in Minstead Gardens, on the Alton Estate, back into use as part of their Hidden Homes programme.

For those of you unfamiliar with this scheme, the Council has since 2003 been converting surplus storage rooms and the like on council estates into extra flats. This is a good scheme: it's pretty much responsible for all the new for rent council homes being created in Wandsworth. The problem is that the Conservatives seem to believe that the 130 homes they've built in those five years (an average of just 26 a year) is the sole and complete cure for the housing problem they share no small amount of responsibility for creating locally.

The number of council homes in Wandsworth has been halved in the last 25 years; from 32,000 in 1981 to less than 16,000 today. With all due respect, 130 hidden homes doesn't even start to rectify this haemorrage of affordable homes.

Minstead Gardens comprises, in the main, sheltered housing bungalows for senior citizens so this space, right on the boundary of Richmond Park, would be perfect for five or so new homes for local pensioners. It would also sort out a derelict site that is currently a bit of an eyesore.

So how about it Wandsworth Council? Let's have some hidden homes for rent in Minstead Gardens.

Shalden shame

Vandals have been smashing up Shalden House in Tunworth Crescent, on the Alton Estate. I never quite understand why a tiny minority enjoys kicking in windows, or urinating in lifts or stairwells - not least their own - but sadly Shalden is the latest victim and the peaceful, self-respecting majority now have to put up with this:



This was one of the problems raised last week at the Roehampton Safer Neighbourhoods Police meeting and I've already taken the issue up with the Council's Housing Director, because this temporary repair isn't good enough: it's dangerous, it's unsightly, it's making the communal areas incredibly dark and residents deserve better. Here are some more other examples of the criminal damage done to Shalden House - you can click to enlarge them:





I know Roehampton's local Police team are working at finding those responsible for this vandalism; and I'll keep pushing the council to make sure that the damage is repaired as soon as possible - because no-one should have to put up with this for any longer than necessary.

New entry in worst Putney pothole competition

Residents of The Platt, just across the road from my campaign HQ in Felsham Road, have a very strong entry into my Putney potholes competition. This is the state the Council has allowed Gay Street, on the estate, to fall into:



Here are a couple of close-ups of what can no longer be called a road - more like a gravel track (you can click to enlarge):



The state of Gay Street - and a lot of the roads on Putney's council estates - leave much to be desired, though of course as my earlier post, here shows, The Council aren't discriminating: they're neglecting all roads equally as dreadfully.

Do you know of a pothole worse than this one? Let me know - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or sms it to 07533 384 895 and we'll add it to our gallery. Sooner or later, even Wandsworth Conservatives will be shamed into taking action on their neglect of our roads.

Lennox Estate blog

Well, there are blogs on the most surprising things, aren't there? I've just come across a blog extolling the virtues of the Lennox Estate off Priory Lane, which you can read here.

And why not? After all, as the blog notes, many people - particularly Roehampton's Conservative councillors - won't go near the estate simply because of pre-conceived notions of what a council estate is like.

The Lennox blog hasn't been updated for a while, but you can find out a bit about why the estate; and blocks within it; are named as they are.

Taking housing concerns to the top

On Tuesday I met with Housing Minister Caroline Flint MP at the House of Commons to take her through my plans to tackle Putney's housing crisis.

Housing is my number one priority; whereas the incumbent Conservative has yet to ask a single question or come up with a single idea to tackle the increasing shortfall in housing affordable to ordinary Putney people it will be my focus as MP for our constituency.

Here's my five point housing plan:

1. For every rented home the council sells off, they will be obliged by law to replace it with two new ones; and first refusal for every surplus piece of public sector land will go to affordable housing

2. Two thirds of all new homes in Wandsworth must be affordable - and by that I mean what most of us regard as affordable: not the absurd formula the Tory council uses which puts new "affordable" homes beyond the means of most Putney residents

3. The Stamp Duty threshold increased to £250,000 as a first step towards a higher threshold for Greater London; and much wider availability of long-term 10 or 15 year fixed rate mortgages.

4. HomeBuy schemes through which first-time buyers can get a grant of up to a third of the cost of a market home worth less than £300,000 repayable only when they choose to move-on, at whatever one third of the value of their property is at sale

5. More family houses - the Tory Council is obsessed with building ever more apartments and flats - especially one bedroom flats - when Putney is in desperate need of family accommodation

This is a common sense, affordable and urgently needed first step towards tackling our housing crisis. But this is a huge problem locally, because of which my plan goes further than the Government's Housing Act.

I'm taking the lead on housing, while the Conservatives have nothing new to say on this critical issue.

In their own words: Conservative neglect of the Alton

Apparently, one of Wandsworth's Conservative Councillors ventured onto Roehampton's Alton estate last Saturday (before anyone asks, it WASN'T one of the councillors elected to, supposedly, serve Roehampton!). This is how she describes her experience on her own blog (in a post titled "Different worlds"!):

"The lift wasn't working, the smells, sights, sounds can be intimidating. On 23rd floor I took fright and ran all the way down and went and did a different block. But I knew I had to go back and finish the one I hadn't done. I came back via the basement walking through foul smelling leaking sewage."

Aside from the fact that no block on the Alton has more than twelve floors - so climbing to the 23rd was a remarkable feat even for a Conservative councillor - let's just take a reality check:

• The Conservatives have run Wandsworth Council (and its housing department) for 30 years
• They've (at least notionally) represented Roehampton ward for the past ten years
• They're the ones who sacked the local caretakers in favour of a cheapskate, out-of-town cleaning contractor
• They're responsible for the lifts working...or not; and the drains being cleared...or not

As the Councillor says candidly: Putney Conservatives live in a different world - on a different planet - entirely.

I wonder if she's bothered to report her findings to the housing department, let alone demand they be fixed? Maybe she doesn't realise that the point of being an elected representative is to improve the quality of life of our constituents, not just to write these shocked, skewed and, frankly, derogatory blogs about the novelty of visiting a council estate, of all places!

UPDATE 26.03.2008 - curiously, the councillor's post has, all of a sudden, disappeared from her website. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of Google, it's been cached - so you can still read it here. Or, if you prefer, as a PDF here.

More from the Arndale

This is the Arndale estate - or at least most of it: the photo was taken from Sudbury House, the big block right on Wandsworth High Street. The three tower blocks are Knowles House, Edwyn House and Albon House on Neville Gill Close, and below them the long block that comprises Eliot and Wentworth Courts.

And here are some more photos we took on Saturday of the neglect of the estate by the Council. One of the things people kept mentioning was that they never get the chance to raise these problems with their councillors (all Conservative), or MP (also Conservative). The Arndale estate lies in Southfields ward, but evidently for their elected representatives, Southfields comprises just the leafy streets around the station - they don't appear to venture north of Granville Road.



When Putney had a Labour MP, Tony Colman, residents of the Arndale and the other northern parts of Southfields could pop in and see him regularly because he held an advice surgery at the Penfold Centre, right at the foot of Albon House. When I'm MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, I'll hold advice sessions in this area too so that local residents are properly represented.

Out and about on the Arndale Estate

For far too many residents of council estates in Putney, this picture typifies the state of the housing the Tory Council believes they deserve to live in.

This is the entrance to Knowles House (or, as the Council's vandalised lettering would have it: "Koles Hous"), one of the three high-rise blocks overlooking King George's Park above the Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth Town.

What a disgraceful image to present to the world of our borough, and how unfortunate that the residents have to put up with such lack of respect for their homes.

My campaign team and I spoke to over 200 residents of Knowles House, its sister blocks Albon and Edwyn Houses, Sudbury Court - the really big blue and white block on the corner of Wandsworth High Street and Garratt Lane, and Eliot and Wentworth Courts: the long blocks in the middle of the Arndale development.

We came across problems that are sadly typical of those we pick up all around the constituency: damp problems, refuse collection problems, graffiti, dangerous dogs, lack of thorough cleaning, anti-social behaviour and - in this case the Housing Department is excelling itself - a flat that floods every time it rains.

Unfortunately, the Council seems much more interested in piling up new high-rise blocks in next door Hardwick's Way and further down Neville Gill Close rather than taking decent care of the ones it already has responsibility for. We're going to be keeping Council housing officers rather busy over the coming weeks, following up on the concerns residents asked for our help with.

The Tories' "affordable" housing scam

Two examples of how Wandsworth Council and their developer friends are making a laughing stock of affordable housing targets have come to light this week.

The first is that the Conservative definition of an affordable home is 250,000 for the tiniest one bedroom flat on the Riverside Quarter development just past Wandsworth Park.

As usual with Wandsworth Conservatives, they've refused to build a single affordable home for rent as part of this huge scheme while the proportion of so-called affordable homes here is barely 15%, despite requirements to make 50% of these huge developments affordable.

Now the Council will say that anyone interested in their poky quarter-of-a-million pound flats (which have all been bunged close to the railway line - the Tories don't believe ordinary Wandsworth residents deserve riverside views) only has to buy a minimum 25% share of that - and for some a 62,500 mortgage is more attainable than one for 250,000.

But that's not the end of the costs. Because while you're repaying that 62,500 mortgage (that's an outgoing of roughly 450 a month) you also have to pay rent on the 75% you don't own - so add another 260 a month to that total. Plus, these are serviced blocks - so add the service charges on top.

And then, if that wasn't crippling enough, I was contacted just today by a resident of the 'affordable' section of Castle Court, which is part of the Brewhouse Lane development by Putney Bridge. For the privilege of being able to park off-street (which she has to, because the council has disqualified residents of these developments from owning a residents' parking permit) her landlord, St George, is demanding the outrageous sum of 12,000!

All this adds up to totally unaffordable 'affordable' housing. It's nothing short of a scandal that whilst our local housing crisis grows ever worse the Conservatives block affordable homes, have the front to claim a 250,000 flat is affordable, and allow their developer chums to fleece those local families.

House prices still soaring

The Evening Standard today reports how London house prices are continuing to soar despite the national slowdown; further widening the gap between the Capital and the rest of the country.

In Wandsworth, prices climbed 20% last year with the average price in the whole borough at 394,000 (remember, in Putney the average price is just shy of half a million), though price-rises have slowed-up this month.

I appreciate, as someone who has a mortgage myself that this is one of those issues where homeowners generally welcome price rises, but for those not on the housing ladder they're a massive - and growing - problem. I don't want to see a down-turn in prices - that will have major consequences in terms of negative-equity for anyone with a mortgage, and we don't want to return to the boom-and-bust days of the last Tory government when tens of thousands lost their homes.

The local housing market is affected by more than just lack of supply and excess demand. The impact of the ultra-rich at the top end of the market in Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster has caused major ripples through next-door boroughs like ours. The rapid demographic changes Wandsworth has experienced in little over 30 years have also worsened the housing problems, as life-long Putney families have been forced out of the area, unable to move to more appropriate accommodation anywhere close to home. And, as I noted before, the Council's aggressive selling-off of half their housing stock has been catastrophic for social mobility in Wandsworth.

The answer remains the same: a massive shift in local house-building priorities away from top-end riverside penthouses and towards affordable homes to rent and buy. Because Wandsworth remains a popular place to live we're likely to avoid a marked downturn in house prices - which is important; but that only places a greater urgency for more affordable housing.

And that's an urgency Putney's Conservative MP and councillors have proven they simply don't have.

Click here for a larger image of the property map in today's Evening Standard.

Housing letter

I had a letter on the housing crisis published recently in the Wandsworth Borough News and Wandsworth Guardian, following parliamentary debate about the Government's housing green paper. Here's what I wrote:

Last week Parliament debated one of the most important issues facing Londoners - the need to provide more affordable homes.

The shortage of affordable housing in Putney means that many couples, families and first-time buyers are priced out of living locally.

There are almost 9,000 Wandsworth residents on the council's waiting list, many of whom have no realistic prospect of being offered a home in the foreseeable future.
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And the amount of affordable homes to rent in the borough has been halved by council policies: from over 32,000 to less than 17,000.

The Government's Housing and Regeneration Bill is a step in the right direction, promising three million new homes by 2020 and 240,000 zero carbon homes built every year.


That is why it is so disappointing that Putney's Conservative MP Justine Greening voted against these plans to build more affordable homes.

But this should come as no surprise as there is no reference to housing problems on her website, and there is no record of Ms Greening ever raising local housing problems in Parliament. She has, however, found time for 10 parliamentary questions on tobacco smuggling and two on the problems of the Island of Sark.

By voting against the Bill, Ms Greening has voted against helping local families to stay in the area as their families grow; she has voted against more affordable homes and she has voted against ensuring the new homes built are low and zero carbon and environmentally-friendly.

I encourage your readers who share my priority for local housing to visit my website at http://www.stuartking.net/housingsurvey and share their housing views with me.

STUART KING
Labour parliamentary candidate for Putney

Tories in denial about their role in our housing crisis

There was a quite extraordinary story in yesterday's Wandsworth Guardian flagging up the out-of-control homelessness problem in our borough.

New figures showing homelessness in the borough now standing at over 9,000 people: that's up a stunning 187% in the space of 6 years.

The figures from the independent London Housing Federation also show over 1,300 people in hugely-expensive temporary accommodation.

These are both disgraceful figures - and I personally would consider resigning if I had been responsible for causing such a problem, as Wandsworth Conservatives have been, by flogging off thousands upon thousands of council homes for rent and aggressively refusing to build any more to replace them.

It beggars belief that the Tories are still attempting to ply the line "Sure, we've halved the number of affordable homes in the borough from over 32,000 to less than 17,000 but it's nothing to do with us guv". It's the reason why I want the law changed so that for every council home sold off, two must be built - for rent - to replace it.

And it really is untenable for Putney's Conservative MP to remain utterly disinterested, oblivious and aloof about the local housing problem. She hasn't asked a single parliamentary question about it since she was elected over two and a half years ago. Yet again, she'd rather shut up about the failings of her Tory friends on the council than side with the constituents who elected her and it's just not good enough.

Read the Guardian article here.

Another example of housing neglect

On Sunday my campaign team and I were out in Southfields ward talking to residents of Brathway Road and Avening Terrace, as well as Merton Road and Morris Gardens.

Just as we found in our earlier visit to Longstaff Road and Longstaff Crescent, we found the state of repairs to the council properties in Brathway and Avening truly shocking - especially the neglect of windows. There was real anger at the refusal of the council to pay any attention to the needs of tenants in this area.

As a result, I asked Councillor Leonie Cooper, Labour's Housing spokesman and London Assembly candidate for our area, to get onto the Housing Department and find out why the Conservative-run council was being so neglectful of this area. And through our efforts, Avening and Brathway are on a list for repairs that could start next April, provided council tenants approve the schedule at a forthcoming meeting.

This is great news for the residents locally, even though it does mean another winter of draughts and higher-than-necessary heating bills, but the question must be asked: two areas of council property, two areas seriously neglected by the council - how many more examples exist around the constituency in similar urgent need of repair?

The Boris Johnson housing plan: LESS affordable homes

The Tory Mayoral candidate for London, Boris Johnson, yesterday came out with his plan to tackle our housing crisis: scrap all obligations on councils to ensure affordable homes are built!

Of course, it wasn't Londoners priced out of the housing market Boris chose to announce his bright idea to: it was house-builders, who would much rather reap the extra profits than honour their commitment to the areas they pile up their gated-off luxury apartments in the midst of.

Along with Wandsworth's Conservative Council - that has just about the worst record in London for building affordable homes and has almost halved the number of council homes for rent in the borough from 32,000 to less than 17,000 - these are just about the only people who would regard Boris's plan as anything other than plain stupid.

So under the Tories, we'll see even more luxury riverside penthouses along our Thamesbank, more public sites sold off for private housing, greater overcrowding, even higher house prices, more homelessness and longer waiting lists.

We desperately need more affordable homes, not less. I think the problem is severe enough in London that I don't think even Ken Livingstone is being radical enough: for the next five years I believe two thirds of all homes built in the Capital should be affordable - mainly for rent. Fat-cat developers like St George won't like that of course, but they know full well that they can still net a huge profit on the one-third of properties they could still sell.

No one can reasonably argue that there is no difference between Labour and Conservative. This is a critical problem: the Tories either ignore it (as Putney's MP does), or want to make it worse. I know Boris likes to play up to his 'buffoon' image but this is ridiculous.

Average Putney house price now half a million

If you needed further evidence that the main focus of Putney's MP should be housing, look no further than the latest figures from the Land Registry. They reveal that the average house price in the constituency is now 498,976.

Despite a slowing housing market in the rest of the country, in London, prices surged by 16%; making homes here twice as expensive as the rest of the UK. This again is why I'm arguing that London is a 'special case' - that we need more imaginative and far-reaching solutions to solve the Capital's problems.

Sadly, we're not getting them from the Conservatives - those that are vaguely interested in the problem, that is (a group that excludes our current MP who hasn't asked a single parliamentary question on the local housing situation since her election). The Tories would actually make the problem worse by accelerating council house sales without any plan to replace the rented homes lost. In effect, they're trying to saddle the rest of the country with the problem they've created in our borough: cash windfalls for the lucky few council tenants fortunate enough to buy their home; greatly reduced social and housing mobility for everyone else.

After a decade of Opposition, it should genuinely worry everyone that the only housing policy the Tories have come up with is a retread that's almost 30 years old - when Britain was a different country. Unless your income's rising by 16% a year then this problem affects you and the Tories couldn't care less.

Click here to visit my homewatch site and here for the www.putneysw15.com coverage of this story.

Government's housing consultation

The Government Green Paper on Housing: Homes for the Future has now been published. Green Papers are official consultation documents and the Government is inviting views from all of us between now and 15th October on the housing challenges facing the country.

I'll be ploughing through it over the Summer and giving my feedback both here on my blog and to the Department for Communities but if you'd like to read more of the Government's ideas you can download the consultation paper here. This is a big file, incidentally: an Adobe PDF 1.7mb so beware if you've got a slow server!

Housing

You may have seen Gordon Brown's announcement yesterday in the House of Commons making housing a central priority of the government in the coming months and years.

This is obviously something I very much welcome: housing is by far the biggest problem faced by people in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields - and it's a problem that affects the whole community, just in different ways.

I'm going to wait until the publication of the Government's Green Paper - their consultation document - next week before commenting in more detail on their plans, but there are five key areas they need to address:

1. Recognising that London's housing problems are very different from the rest of the country: affordability; capacity and the polarisation of very affluent areas next door to incredibly deprived ones.

2. Protecting the Green Belt: we do not want Stevenage, Reading, Crawley and Chelmsford to become suburbs of Greater London due to urban sprawl - and the only thing preventing that is the Green Belt

3. Clearing the party-political roadblock that stops the provision of affordable homes - as in our area - while preserving the right of local people to have a say on planning issues and tailoring housing policy to local need.

4. Building sustainable communities: affordable housing should be high quality housing, communities should have a diversity of housing tenures, property sizes and residents should reflect a diversity of backgrounds. And homes should be built closer to jobs.

5. Increasing housing mobility: more schemes to help first-time-buyers, help with stamp duty, more council homes to rent - and an end to the stigma that living in rented council housing is something to be ashamed of; a duty on councils to replace every home sold under right-to-buy with at least two new homes to rent.

These are just the first steps I think are needed to begin tackling our chronic housing problem. It's good that the Government has given housing the priority it demands; I'm optimistic that they'll bring forward ideas next week upon which we can - pardon the pun - build.