It is emerging that my fears on affordable housing are being found to be true.
If you recall I was contacted by some nurses who were finding they could not afford the newly built "affordable housing for key workers" because the prices were too high to start with. New flats in Kingston are now apparently costing £230k. Even with 50% shared equity schemes nurses and teachers cannot afford the mortgage of £115k on a salary of £25k. I raised the midwives concerns at a Council meeting and lo and behold two days later the Council officers consult legal Counsel on their position and instruct the developer and Housing Association to stop selling until they could determine what was an 'affordable house'. To make it worse the rumour is that city lawyers are buying the reserved key worker housing because the allocation gets released when no 'real' key workers come forward.
The Council appears on the surface to have made an awful mistake but we shall have to work through what can be done. Were it found that the Council had not determined what was meant by affordable housing then it really does cast into doubt the whole handling of this issue. As I have said elsewhere this Council has really got no policy to encourage keyworker housing. I am not even convinced that Government has yet sorted out what they mean by the definition.
We all need these people to live, work and stay in Kingston. Kingston is an expensive place to live. We know that to live here the cheapest accommodation needs a salary in excess of £55k per annum to gain a mortgage. I will not even start on the issue of the damage of Lib Dem local income tax on any house with a joint income over £35k!!
Busy day today. Long group meeting with some important items. It is starting to be an interesting Autumn. I look forward with hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment