Concerns about the future of land where homes have been demolished

Dear Messenger

I have strong concerns about the future of land in the Burngreave area where council homes have been demolished. I fear that much of the vacant land will be sold off cheaply to private developers. While waiting times for council homes are growing, largely due to demolition.

Sheffield City Council has, for the last few years, been pursuing a policy of ‘aggressively addressing’ what they call ‘housing overcapacity’ by demolishing 1,000 council homes a year (Guardian, 19 Jan 2005), including many in Burngreave. This has been at the time of a building boom in the private sector, seeing the construction of thousands of new private homes and apartments, particularly in the city centre.

Between 1998 and 2005, the active housing waiting list in Sheffield rose by over 60% – from 16,506 to 27,000. 1,000 homes a year were knocked down, whilst the numbers seeking a council house rose by 1,500.

Clearly, what the Council managers are concerned with is not ‘housing overcapacity’ in general, but too much social housing. At the beginning of the 1980s there were over 95,000 council houses in Sheffield, today this is down to around 45,000, which the council proclaims as an achievement! “[2005] sees housing demand exceed supply for the first time in many years” (ibid).

Why? Because New Labour see housing as the key to prosperity. Joanne Roney, housing manager, said last January that she is: “Proud that a house fetching £80,000 eighteen months ago is now worth £160,000” (ibid). Our children will be priced out of the market and end up queuing for rented accommodation.

How much of the land cleared around Catherine Road/Ellesmere Road will be used to provide ordinary people with houses that they can afford? Woodside is prime development land – on the slope of a hill with commanding views across the city centre. It is a short walk from the city centre and near to large developments of private flats on the River Don.

£1m of New Deal money was used to pay for the demolition and ‘regeneration’ of Woodside. Is this simply going to involve the social cleansing of poor people from valuable land? What we hear so far is that there is going to be a ‘mix’ of social and private housing. Many feel this is not good enough.

Ben Morris, Sheffield housing campaigner

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