Tory Actions "Immoral and Wrong"
February 25, 2008 11:01 PM
The 'Right to Buy' of Council homes by sitting tenants was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in October 1980. Since then Warwick District Council has sold over 4,215 homes, and many of them can now be seen in estate agents at prices most local people seeking to get onto the home ownership ladder just cannot afford.
For 28 years the council has used this money to help, when necessary, to subsidise development costs for housing associations to enable them to provide affordable homes for local people.
At the District Council budget setting meeting on Thursday 21st February all of this changed. This year £320,000 was taken to fund the purchase of Oakley Wood and a further £100,000 taken to fund the Rural Initiatives Scheme.
Liberal Democrat councillors called the actions of the Tory Administration immoral.
Cllr Alan Boad
Liberal Democrat District Council leader Cllr Alan Boad said, "The Tory Administration have taken away money from the sale of council houses, which have been used to help build more new affordable homes, to use it for non housing expenditure. It is immoral and wrong!"
"The Tories could not even be open and transparent and have a full debate about the decision; it was buried on page 25 of the Executive's budget papers and marked only by an asterisk and a comment in a table."
Cllr Alan Boad called on the Council to reject the Tories plans and to pay the £320,000 for the purchase of Oakley Wood and the £100,000 that it had also taken to fund the Rural Initiatives Grants Scheme from the council's general reserves.
He said, "We supported the purchase of Oakley Wood but, it's a simple question, is it morally right to use money received for housing to pay for non housing activities?
We say NO!"
He also asked Cllr Chris White, the Conservative portfolio holder for Leisure, "How was he going to explain on the doorstep the decision to use housing money for the purchase of Oakley Woods to those desperate for an affordable home?"
Speaking after the meeting Cllr Boad said, "If the administration was so convinced that it could soon return the cash to Housing then why can't the General Reserves carry what they clearly think is only a small risk of not replacing the money. The Executive had taken advantage of the fact that the Portfolio Holder for Housing was on holiday at just the wrong time, I'm sure that he would never have let them propose it in the first place."
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