The Putney Paper - new edition out now

I've just taken receipt of 35,000 copies of summer 2009 edition of The Putney Paper. The headline is a message I think needs saying because too many Labour MPs have let the public (and yes, my party too) down really badly.

As well as setting out my position on the expenses scandal, the Putney Paper also contains stories on our continuing battle against Tory overdevelopment plans for the area - check out the Overdevelopment Line to see just how much of our borough is - quite literally - under threat.

There's also an update on Southfields Station's lift, the really unfortunate sell-off of Arton Wilson House by the NHS; some of the work the Government's been up to nationally which has gone largely unnoticed because of the expenses scandal; and our usual news round-up and su doku on the back page.

And if you've got a local gripe about a problem or issue, you can use my "Get it sorted" slip to let me know. Or alternatively, click here to go to the Get In Touch page and report it right now!

35,000 copies is the largest circulation of any publicity Putney Labour Party has undertaken in years - every single copy is delivered by local volunteers. We don't use a delivery company and not a penny of public money funds The Putney Paper. We do this because you deserve to be able to make the most informed choice possible at the next election. Such a wide delivery demonstrates that there are no no-go areas for Labour in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

You can read the latest edition of The Putney Paper right here.

Arton Wilson: a housing scandal

This is Arton Wilson Wilson House, Roehampton Lane; the derelict nurses' accommodation that the NHS is trying to sell off for maximum profit.

At a time when thousands are losing their homes and council housing waiting lists are so long, I think it is a scandal that affordable housing like this is boarded up and fenced off.

The NHS is wrong to seek maximum profit for this site when they themselves have admitted that they have a local shortage of school nurses in part due to the lack of affordable local homes. And a local council serious about tackling homelessness would have sat down with NHS bosses and hammered out a deal to provide - at the very least - short-term temporary accommodation for the many on the housing waiting list.

Apparently the NHS argue that nurses "didn't want to live" in Arton Wilson House. I find that slightly odd, because on the last electoral register before it was decanted there were almost 100 people living here. But if it's the case that the housing is substandard, the common sense answer is to renovate it, not close it down and sell it off.

The NHS cannot, I understand, find a buyer for this site. They are a public service first and foremost: not a profiteering fat-cat land developer. They should take Arton Wilson House off the market immediately and open negotiations with the Council, local Housing Associations and the Homes and Communities Agency to house 100 Putney people waiting for a home.

School nurses need homes

Since she has become her party's spokesman for Communities, Putney's Conservative MP has noticed that there is a shortage of school nurses in London.

I'm delighted that like me she is calling for more school nurses. However calling for them alone won't make them happen. Nor, as she seems to believe, will simply throwing money at the problem - Labour has doubled spending on the NHS since 1997. And I must ask where Miss Greening believes her party will find this extra money she's calling for given their very clear position that government should be cutting spending, not increasing it.

The problem, as the NHS locally admits, is the lack of affordable homes for school nurses and other key medical staff in our borough. It's why I'm opposing the NHS sell-off of Arton Wilson House in Roehampton Lane: purpose-built homes for nurses which the Conservative Council is waiting to rubber-stamp for yet more luxury penthouses.

If Justine Greening is serious in her claims to be concerned about the lack of school nurses - and I hope she is - I invite her to join me in trying to persuade Wandsworth NHS to reverse their sell-off plans for Arton Wilson House. But more substantively, she needs to start standing up to her Conservative councillors on Wandsworth Council and insist on far more keyworker homes in any new plans for Putney, such as Tileman House and Putney Place.

The difficulty for Miss Greening is this a problem caused by Conservative politicians implementing Conservative policies. More of the same simply won't do.

The opportunity for new affordable homes

The global financial crisis has transformed the economic environment: nowhere more so than for Britain's building industry.

Had absurd massive private housing plans like those for Putney Place and Danebury Avenue not been unlikely before the credit crunch, in it's aftermath they look completely unachievable. There is not the market and developers lack the funds to see such schemes through.

I've been arguing long and hard since I became Putney's candidate that what our area needs desperately is a dramatic increase in affordable homes: especially affordable homes to rent. We've lost over half our rented council homes locally in the past 25 years: there were over 32,000 in 1981; there are now barely 16,000.

For the past two decades, the only way affordable homes continued to be built was when a handful got bolted onto planning permissions for vastly larger developments of private housing. That is no longer an option.

Instead, Wandsworth Council needs to start working closely with Housing Associations to dramatically boost affordable housing development. Not just because we desperately need the new affordable homes, but also to help the economy and keep builders working.

And they can start by acquiring Arton Wilson House on Roehampton Lane from the NHS. Arton Wilson House was, until a few weeks ago, housing for nurses and other medical workers, but the NHS has declared it surplus to requirements and it is now empty and awaiting demolition.

Arton Wilson House is public land that must remain in public hands - and meet the affordable housing need locally. This is an opportunity the Conservative Council must not squander.