My second post based on (my interpretation) of an “Inside Housing” email bulletin. The title of the actual article is the slightly less controversial “Boris lets Tory council slash social housing”.It refers to the decision by Boris’s deputy mayor, Ian Clement, to let Tory Council Hammersmith & Fulham approve a new large development with NO social housing at all. This was only just weeks after the GLA’s own planners branded it “unacceptable”. This is in White City, which is an area of massive waiting lists and housing need. The Council even owns the land.
In order to alleviate overcrowding developers are usually required to set aside a percentage of new build properties for social housing. The Tories reckon that the area already has enough social housing in that area so bringing in 100% private ownership will for example reduce “housing benefit” claims.
I am sure of course that this has nothing to do with past Tory Westminster Council “gerrymandering”. Obviously reserving this development for only private homebuyers has nothing to do with any attempt by this newly elected Tory Council to get rid of pesky social housing tenants? Who might even (God forbid) vote Labour in local elections? Of course not!
Labour minister Herbert Morrison was condemned for supposedly saying, while the leader of the pre war London County Council (LCC) that he would “build the Tories out of London”. He always denied actually saying this.
Never mind, it appears that this generation of Tories are prepared to exploit the human misery of housing need to further their own “Lebensraum”
(poster above is for what came to be known as a "Morrison Shelter")
