Campaigning for Sadiq in Carpenters with Lyn & Unmesh

Yesterday was a London wide campaign day for the re-election of Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan and Labour representatives on the Greater London Assembly.

We met at a Labour stall in Stratford for the obligatory group photos then split up into 3 canvass teams. The Newham Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, took a team into Maryland while  the other two teams went to the Carpenters Estate. I was with our local MP, Lyn Brown and our Cities and East Assembly member, Unmesh Desai.

Residents were as usual in Newham, pretty positive and supportive but a little surprised to see us campaigning so soon after the general election. There was not much recognition that the GLA elections are taking place in May so we have lots of work to do. I recognised some of the residents who have been participating in the monthly Carpenters forums on the future of the estate.

The GLA elections are crucial for Newham, even more following the General Election catastrophe. Sadiq has provided us with £107 million to build truly affordable Council homes as well as much needed funding to tackle rough sleeping. We desperately need a Labour Mayor and Labour Assembly members in City Hall to continue this work. 

Affordable Housing Conference - "A Bold Plan for Local Authority to Deliver it’s own Housing"

My speech today at this "Affordable Housing" conference in central London.

"Thank you. As I think I am the only politician speaking today, I hope you will find our perspective of what we are doing in Newham of interest. 

First the bad stuff, which no one here should be surprised about but just needs saying.

Like many Councils up and down the country, Newham is desperately in need of good quality, affordable social homes. For too long supply has failed to keep pace with demand, and a series of damaging Government policies have compounded to result in a disastrous impact on the lives of our residents. As house prices and rents have rocketed in recent years, many of our residents continue to struggle on low incomes.

· In Newham, the impact is stark:

- Nearly half of all Newham residents are now in poverty once housing costs are accounted for.

- Over 28,000 households are currently on our housing waiting list

- More than 5,200 households are living in temporary accommodation(remember this figure).

- And not only does Newham has the highest number of homeless people in England – shockingly, we have 50% more children in temporary accommodation than in the entire north of England.

We have an ambitious local plan to tackle this national crisis – and we are calling on the government and partners for additional action that will help local government to step up the building of truly affordable homes.

Our central argument in that the market alone won’t deliver what people need – you need bold action from government, partners and from local authorities to drive forward affordable housing delivery.

We have set out demanding plans for direct housing delivery:

o 1,000 new Council owned homes at social rent in 4 years.

o 100 started in the first year

o Half of homes delivered in the borough to be genuinely affordable

Our recently agreed Local Plan sets out over the longer term that we will deliver 43,000 homes over 15 years. We have the land available in Newham, and we have the ambition to make a serious impact on London’s housing crisis. We want to work in partnership to do just that.

Our approach to delivering affordable housing has 3 main objectives.

1. Build

a. Direct delivery on Council owned sites &

b. More than 1,000 genuinely affordable homes paid for by grant

c. 1,000 homes for sale with all profits recycled into more affordable housing

2. Acquire

a. Buy into third party schemes

b. Increased provision for a mix of permanent and temporary solutions as part of a housing pathway of homeless prevention and advice

c. Make full use of RTB receipts. 

3. Secure

· Working within the planning system to increase genuinely affordable provision

· We have more than 4,000 affordable homes already with planning consent - of which 40 per cent have started

10 months in to our new administration in the borough, and we are already delivering:

We successfully bid for £107m from the Mayor of London’s Building Council Homes for Londoners Fund - the highest allocation of any London authority.

We have invested £500k to recruit a new housing delivery team, enabling us to have capacity and step up delivery

And we have made sure that our own housing delivery vehicle - Red Door Ventures – is focused on delivering the genuinely affordable homes that Newham needs. RVD is a 100% council-owned company, will be an important driver in the delivery of affordable homes in the borough in the coming years.

There is much more to do – but we want to work in partnership to deliver the genuinely affordable homes that Newham needs. For example, we are also actively looking into with other LA and investors whether our Council pension funds should invest in social housing.

Of course, this cannot just be about numbers of units – we need to involve people in the process. The key phrase of our administration in Newham is ‘putting people at the heart of everything we do’. That means genuinely involving people in decisions – including major decision about their local area.

There has been a strong feeling in Newham and many other communities that regeneration does nothing for the existing local residents – that it displaces local people and just pushes up rents.

It is a feeling that has developed over recent years as the housing crisis has worsened, despite major developments and luxury flats springing up across the capital. And it has also developed because local people do not feel sufficiently consulted and involved in the process. They have often felt ignored

So we will also be pioneering new engagement approaches to involve residents in decision making – in major development like the Carpenters Estate in Stratford.

Finally, as the only politician on the panel, I do need to point out the changes we need from government. We have ambitious plans in Newham. But we continue to be shackled by disastrous Government policies.

The housing crisis is worsened by the government’s damaging and poorly implemented welfare reforms.

And while the lifting of the HRA cap is welcome, we need more funding for local authorities to build the social homes that we need. We need subsidy to make homes truly affordable.

Crucially, we also need to see an end to the Right to Buy (RTB) policy, which continues to strip away our social safety net depriving our residents of hundreds of desperately needed social homes:

Since 1982, Newham Council has lost almost 10k (9,707) social homes to RTB. 1/3 of our stock. The high discounts, the low qualification period, and the restrictions around the use of RTB receipts also mean that it is almost impossible for LA to replace these greatly needed homes.

RTB not delivering its original intention of helping social tenants to purchase and live in their own home. Instead, it is increasingly supporting the growth of the private rented sector - it is shocking that nearly half of all these 10k properties purchased through RTB in Newham are now in the private rented sector. Remember I said earlier we have just over 5k homeless households. Do the maths

England needs to follow the example of Scotland and Wales and end RTB, as a crucial part of a package that will help LAs deliver Localism but also the homes we need in a sustainable way.

Thank you for listening

"East End promise: an interview with Newham mayor Rokhsana Fiaz"

(hat tip "Inside Housing") Newham’s new mayor has a tough job on her hands to tackle some of the country’s worst housing deprivation. Peter Apps finds out how she plans to do it. Photography by Peter Searle

"Newham’s new mayor has a tough job on her hands to tackle some of the country’s worst housing deprivation. By several measures, the east London borough of Newham has the worst housing crisis in the UK. It has the largest gap in the country between the social housing that becomes available each year (588 homes) and the number of families waiting for it (25,729).

One in 25 people in the borough are homeless, the highest proportion in the country. Since last May, for the first time in 23 years, someone different has had the responsibility for turning the borough’s housing situation around. Newham’s new mayor is Rokhsana Fiaz, a first-generation daughter of Pakistani parents and a lifelong East Ender. Ms Fiaz is far from the archetype of an aloof, out-of-touch political leader. Her answer? To build thousands of council-owned homes for social rent.

This is something for which campaigners and commentators have been calling for years – but others have warned that it is impossible to do so in the current funding climate. Ms Fiaz is undeterred. “This administration is about pursuing what was thought of as impossible and making it possible,” she declares. While recent history is against her (in 2017/18, just 16 homes for social rent were built in Newham and just 157 have been added to the borough’s stock in the past three years), Ms Fiaz believes the policy climate is turning. “We are beginning to tear up the orthodoxy book that has very much framed the approach to housebuilding and housing delivery for the past couple of decades because it is just simply not sustainable. If you don’t want to be part of this new story about housebuilding in this country where councils are in the driving seat, that’s fine – you can go elsewhere because I’m only interested in working with developers and partners who want to be on the right side of history.”

Ms Fiaz is trying to make history in Newham. And if she succeeds in getting a generation of its children out of temporary accommodation and into their own homes, then history is exactly what she will make.

See full story here (paywall) https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/east-end-promise-an-interview-with-newham-mayor-rokhsana-fiaz-59919

Residents stories exploring the impact of the housing crisis in Newham

Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in conversation with local residents with James Murray, London Deputy Mayor for Housing. Finally, some good housing news for Newham residents and the Carpenters Estate in particular. 

Carpenters Estate Stratford

On Saturday I mobiked through the Carpenters Estate to meet a friend at the Olympic stadium and on route had a chance to do an unofficial walkabout. While I thought that the poppies and flowers displays were lovely and well kept, I know that there are problems on the estate.  I need to meet up with local residents, Councillors and stakeholders about housing services, while the Mayor is clear that she wants a resident led masterplan for the future redevelopment of the area. 

BBC1 Sunday Politics London report on Newham Mayoral Trigger rerun after "decades and decades" of one person in power...

A somewhat neutral and balanced report by BBC London on the Newham Mayoral Trigger ballot rerun to decide our next Labour Candidate in the local elections in May.

The clip features Cllr Conor McAuley, a former Newham Cabinet member, who strongly criticises the current mayor, Robin Wales, over his housing policy citing 389 homes in the Stratford Carpenter Estate being left empty since 2005, while only the day before, homeless people were being evicted a short walk way by the Council and issued with CPNs (Community Protection Notices).

I will admit that I have not always seen eye to eye with Conor over the years but I am mystified that some people have been given all the credit for the 2012 Olympic bid and for the regeneration in Newham, when in fact it was Conor, as the Chair of the Council's main planning Committee for many years, who was as much as anyone responsible for facilitating the construction of the Westfields Shopping centre, which then made possible the successful Olympic Stadium bid.

There were some errors in the clip. I am not sure what "Centralist Labour" actually means? and why Conor is definitely not a supporter of Momentum, there is a very widespread coalition of Labour Party members across the entire Labour political spectrum who have supported the call for an open selection, which includes Momentum, Fabians, CLPD, Progress, Co-Op Party, Labour First, Compass and a number of trade union affiliates.

So far 8 branches have voted overwhelmingly for an open selection. There are 12 more to cast their votes as well as trade union and socialist society affiliates.

On Friday Cllr John Whitworth withdrew his challenge to the Mayoral position in favour of Cllr Rokhsana Fiaz.

Newham born and bred, Chair of Scrutiny and Custom House Councillor, Rokhsana Fiaz has made it clear that she would stand as a Mayoral candidate if there was a contest. 

Focus 15, Occupation and the Carpenters Estate

It was good to read on Friday that Newham had managed to let out some of the long term void properties on the Carpenter Estate to homeless residents.

I had received a large number of complaints by ward constituents and many other people about the way that the Council had dealt with the occupation by Focus 15 mothers and their supporters of 4 flats on the Estate.

At the Full Council meeting on 29 September, Cllr Rokhsana Fiaz OBE and I raised emergency formal questions to the Mayor, Sir Robin Wales.  After the meeting there had been unacceptable violent and aggressive scenes outside East Ham Town hall by some supporters of the occupation.

Later that week on the way home from work, I went to visit the occupation with my fellow West Ham ward Cllr, John Whitworth. A number of Newham Councillors had visited the site.  Relatives of Councillors and local Labour Party members were also assisting the occupation.

John and I spoke to Focus 15 Mums and supporters in what turned out to be a 30 minutes long outdoor discussion on the future of affordable housing in London (and elsewhere).  This debate was at times passionate and pretty lively but generally polite and constructive.

My basic argument was that it had been accepted that Newham Council had not always acted properly with the Focus 15 Mums (the Mayor has apologised) the problem of affordable housing is a wider political issue. To make housing affordable in a high rent area such as London someone has to subsidise the cost. In the past the State used to accept responsibly for ensuring that its people had access to safe, secure and (truly) affordable homes. Even the Tories in the 1950s used to compete with Labour on who could build the most homes each year on a social rent (50% of market rent).

Councils and Housing Associations can always manage their stock and developments better but until the State puts its hand in its pockets and takes its responsibly to people seriously again then we will not solve the housing crisis in this Country. Instead of wasting money on housing benefit we should be investing this in homes but this will not be enough. Subsidy requires money....lots of money. This is a political truth that we will all have to grapple with.

Unfortunately John and I were not able to actually visit the block since by the time our discussion was over the campaigners were holding an urgent meeting to discuss legal issues regarding the pending court case by the Council to recover the properties.