Story: Ben Morris
Campaigners calling for more social rented housing in the Burngreave area have received a boost by a promise that under Brown the rules that Thatcher brought in which prevented council's from building any new Council houses will at last be ‘relaxed’ (Daily Mirror, 2 May 2007). Housing Minister Yvette Cooper has stated these intentions publicly:
“Families on council waiting lists know we have to build more homes… Lots of councils have spare land. We want to make it easier to build homes for local people.”
This has implications for the plans for the site where 450 council homes were demolished at Woodside. Current proposals are for this land to be handed over to private developers to build expensive homes for private sale in return for ‘around 7’ social rented homes. Local campaigners believe it would be madness to proceed with these plans now that the Government is promising changes which would make a more acceptable mix of housing a real possibility.
Unless shady ‘backroom deals’ have already been done with private developers, there can be no justification now in continuing with the original sell-off proposals.