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Affordable Social Housing – don’t bank on it folks!

Admin Deb — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 20:02:20 +0000

Grant Shapps warned two weeks ago that severe cuts would be made to the Affordable Homes Project. Well its now pretty clear that around 150 or so projects will now be scrapped.

So where does that leave the 4.5 million households on the waiting lists nationwide? The current coalition Government will scrap regional housebulding targets without introducing an alternative. Since Grants of 1.16 billion have been cut from grants to local authorities to help with building it all speaks of an ill thought out plan. Housing Associations fund 60% of building costs with the rest coming from these grants. Pity the poor HA’s who have invested in developing land for your new home only to have that money now withdrawn.

250,000 new homes were planned to be built every year to reach the target of 3m new homes by 2020. We will be lucky if we get 20,000 this year.

An ill wind doth blow methinks.

Fuel Poverty

Admin Deb — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:26:27 +0000

So what is Fuel Poverty. According to the Government, fuel poverty occurs when a household needs to spend 10% or more of its income on fuel. Adequate warmth is when the main living room is heated to 21 degrees and the rest of the house at 18 degrees during the day. Lower temperatures are adequate at night.

According to official Government figures, around 3.5 million households currently spend more than 10% of their income on heat and fuel – the official yardstick for fuel poverty. In 2003, only 1.5 million were living in fuel poverty but huge price hikes in electricity and gas bills in recent years have seen numbers rocket.

The government has a long-standing vow to end fuel poverty in England by 2016.

Their main is to get homes insulated but that does not help people when energy companies are hiking prices when stock is in short supply and not lowering them again when stock levels are normal. OFGEM does nothing to help – perhaps the staff all have shares in the major energy companies. The government does not rise benefits in line with the 10 – 25% rise in bills.

Its an ill wind that blows when you have to decide whether to starve or be warm.

Living in the real world

Admin Deb — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:06:44 +0000

I am going to have a pop at our beloved Members of Parliament. Having just about scraped through the expenses scandal last year (and with four now trying to escape prosecution by claiming immunity), do you as a voter still have faith in them? The reason I’m bringing this up is because I watched the programme on TV’s Channel 4 – Tower Block of Commons, where MP’s were challenged to live for a week on benefits in Social Housing. I have to say I personally was appalled by their collective snobbery and general lack of knowledge of living in our society today – what we call the real world. I won’t name names – its pointless. Some were more educated on our lives than others. Some had more understanding of our day to day lives and the struggle that people living in Social Housing and surviving on benefits have. Ultimately, did they really care though? Doubt it.

I could go on and on about this programme and the MP’s. I won’t. What I will say though is that I will be very surprised if the MP’s in the programme don’t show a true representation of all the MP’s lounging around in the Houses of Parliament and putting their clothing, carpets and food on their claim forms at OUR expence. How can we expect them to help those on benefits and in Social Housing when they don’t even know the price of a loaf of bread. Its truly shameful and embarrassing both for MP’s and us – the people that elected them.