I DO not know whether many people will recall the three key pledges given by us Conservatives during the Deane council election campaign, even though it is still only a few weeks since going to the polls.One of the pledges was to ‘build more affordable homes to meet the increasing need’.
Unfortunately, of course, we as a party have not been able to form the administration of the council and that role now rests with the Liberal Democrats.
I am, however, a member of the council’s housing review panel and in that capacity I have taken a keen interest in the subject of affordable housing and I recently publicly challenged the Housing Corporation when they tried to present a false picture of affairs in Taunton Deane at a meeting chaired by a Lib Dem councillor (I am not blaming the chairman, he happens to be a friend of mine and I know he is genuine in his desire to do his best for people in need).
I have also attended an affordable housing open day held in the Deane House, where hundreds and hundreds of local people in real need of a home of their own came along (the photograph is of me at the event).
The place was buzzing with interest and our housing enabling manager Lesley Webb and her staff did a brilliant job in organising it.
There was every housing association present that you could think of, and some which I would never have thought of, plus many of the support services which operate locally, such as banks, building societies, solicitors, and estate agents.
The occasion was seen as important enough for the Mayor, Councillor Ken Hayward, to officially open it.
Even the Lib Dem’s housing portfolio holder, Councillor Hazel Prior-Sankey, attended for a while.
It illustrated just how much demand there is for housing to be provided at prices and rents which local people can afford to pay in these days of spiralling property prices and static wages, where people often face having to borrow 10 times their annual salary for a mortgage, which, of course, they cannot do.
How terribly disappointing, therefore, that Mrs Prior-Sankey’s Lib Dem leader, Councillor Ross Henley, is already trying to stop some affordable housing being built nearby in Wellington.
These are desperately-needed homes for local people which were promised by the Conservatives to meet local demand, and which were on the point of being delivered with, I believe, the necessary land having already been transferred to the housing association which was to build them.
But then, along comes Councillor Henley looking to win a few personal votes from people in his Deane ward who, human nature being what it is, do not want houses built next door to them.
Councillor Henley, who, of course covers the Blackdown ward in his role as a county councillor, wants to cancel the development and is doing his best to persuade the Deane’s officers to find a way of doing so.
What a pity, therefore, that I did not see him at the affordable housing open day, when he could have talked to the nearly-500 people who attended in search of homes for themselves or their children.
On offer during the day in various locations in the Deane were 24 shared ownership apartments - for which more than 75 people applied on the day; 36 low cost outright purchase homes being sold at 40 per cent below market value - a discount which will remain in perpetuity - at £75,000 for a two-bedroom house and £99,000 for a three-bedroom house, where the developer was inundated with requests for applications to sign up in the hope of being able to step onto the housing ladder for the first time; and 10 shared ownership homes currently under construction; while details of many other homes in the pipeline were also available.
It was all designed to show local people that owning an affordable home could be just around the corner for them and was not out of their reach.
What a pity, therefore, that the Lib Dems are already dashing some of those hopes for them.
I have made a point of telling parish councillors since the elections in May that I want to work with Councillor Henley and anybody else, regardless of politics, to help improve the Blackdown communities and their environment.
I will not, though, allow Councillor Henley and his Lib Dem colleagues to get away without being challenged when they make disastrous decisions such as cancelling affordable housing projects for purely political reasons to win a few votes for themselves.
