Give Us All Our Housing Rents Say Liberal Democrats

6.05.38pm GMT Thu 13th Mar 2008

With the fate of council housing in South Cambridgeshire in the balance Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to stop making our council tenants subsidise council house repairs in other parts of the country.

At their Spring Conference last week end Liberal Democrats backed this call together with other measures to build over a million new social homes over the next 10 years to greatly reduce the waiting lists for social housing which currently stand at over 1.6 million.

One of the conference delegates Jonathan Chatfield the Lib Dem's parliamentary spokesperson for South East Cambridgeshire who is also a South Cambs councillor explained:

"There are almost one million fewer social houses available now than during the last housing market crash. Without this safety net what will happen to the 45,000 families expected to have their homes repossessed this year?

"All the council house sales money needs to be used to build new social housing and robbing councils of their housing rents to pay for repairs elsewhere has to stop.

"Lib Dem councillors got the Tory controlled South Cambs council to change its mind on making a decision above the heads of our tenants and to give tenants all the facts to make up their own minds.

"We strongly believe its the tenants who should decide. But when it comes to council house funding its not a level playing field.

"The fact that neither Labour and Tory MPs have supported us in Parliament in our fight for a better deal for council housing in the Housing Bill says everything about their commitment to present and future council tenants."