Labour Party Candidate Calls For More Rural Housing

KALEEM Saeed, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Henley Constituency, has criticised the district council’s housing policy.
In a statement today, he said: “Hands Off South Oxon” shouts the SODC website, as if we were facing an invasion of aliens who must be firmly diverted to Didcot. But the gentrification of its towns and villages is already undermining their health, and the new life and balance injected by the building of council houses has faded dangerously. First, there weren’t enough children, and the villages lost their schools; then, in both villages and towns, the cost of housing and the buying out of council houses prevented those children’s return as adults. So the link between the generations was lost, and the villages lost post-offices, shops, and pubs. Now the average age of the parents is increasing steadily, and carers and social workers must be brought in from elsewhere by agencies.
There is an urgent need for another injection and another attempt to restore the social balance which created these towns and villages in the first place.
The instruments for doing this already exist. There are villages with land on which at least 50 houses or flats could be built without endangering open spaces, and further infilling is possible in towns. The housing association, SOHA, has the ability to allow tenants to buy 50 per cent of a house, with limited, not absolute right to resell – so protecting the srock for the future, and to create a mix of privately and publicly owned housing, to avoid ‘one class’ estates. Rejuvenation is possible, given the will and the courage; all that is stopping it is fear and mistrust of our fellow-citizens.

For further information on Kaleem, and comment on current issues, visit www.henleylabourparty.co.uk