The Green Party of England and Wales today launched its local election campaign in Bristol with a pledge to support councils to massively increase their supply of affordable housing.
Co-leader Carla Denyer, who is standing as the parliamentary candidate in Bristol Central, said:
“This country faces an acute housing crisis. There are over a million households on council waiting lists. In England the average home for sale now costs more than 8 times the annual average household earnings.
“We desperately need a massive increase in the supply of affordable social housing. Councils have a vital role to play but they need a framework that supports them to provide the homes that people desperately need. We need to unlock the policies that will make hundreds of thousands of extra council homes available – for good. We also need a fair deal for the mil lions of people renting in the private sector.”
The policies the Green Party would introduce to help councils increase the supply of affordable housing include:
- Providing funding to councils to meet their needs for affordable social housing and lift the overly restrictive rules on council borrowing for housebuilding – ensuring at least an extra 150,000 council homes a year are made available through a mix of new build, refurbishment, conversions and buying up existing homes
- Ending Right to Buy, enabling local authorities to keep council homes available and affordable in the community for good
- Taming the private rental market through rent controls, in places where the rental market is overheated, to ensure a fair rent, as well as ending no- fault evictions.
- Creating a ‘community right to buy’, giving councils, housing associations and community housing groups first refusal to buy certain properties that come onto the market, including former social housing bought under Right to Buy; properties in need of energy efficiency improvements; or any property left empty for an unacceptably long time
Co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who is standing as parliamentary candidate for Waveney Valley, added:
“Whilst our housing crisis is one of supply, it is also a crisis of housing quality, and homes too often being built with a view to developers’ profits rather than community needs. That’s why our Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price charter which we announced last year would transform the planning system to ensure all new homes are built to the highest environmental standards while prioritising brownfield sites and requiring all new developments come with investment in local services, better bus services and infrastructure for walking and cycling.”
For more information see Greens call for Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter
