Southwark housing quibble

For those of you that have yet to vote today in the Southwark area, here's something to consider.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour in the Southwark area have a disagreement over council housing.

The Liberal Democrat councillor said: "In Southwark, with almost 20,000 people on the housing waiting list, Southwark is in desperate need of new affordable homes. 

Unfortunately, the current Labour-run council has sold-off or demolished 935 homes since 2010, making the situation even worse. 

It has also failed to build new homes to replace the ones we’ve lost, with just 33 new council homes built since 2010...

They have also pledged to end the housing sell-off, and kick-start a new programme of house building. They will fight for a better deal from developers to make sure they are providing affordable homes as part of new developments."

When challenged on this Labour responded with the statement: "The Labour council has the largest council house building programme in the country...

This is despite the council losing almost £100m funding under Government cuts supported by Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes. 



Mr Hughes also cut funding to build affordable homes (from about £128k per home to £25k per home) and backed the Government re-defining 'affordable' as 80% of market rent.

The Liberal Democrats ran Southwark council in coalition with the Tories (2002-2010) and did not build council homes even with higher (Labour) Government funding."

Labour also quote that Labour has repaired 7,000 empty council homes to let for local families, while the Liberal Democrats have sold off or demolished 9,000 council homes.