Cllr Mitchell

Housing minister John Healey has offered councils a new deal aimed at abolishing the current complex system of council housing finance and setting up a new devolved self-financing settlement. This will give councils, including Brighton and Hove, the freedom to fund and run their local housing stock.
 
Plans will include dismantling the current Housing Revenue Account subsidy system of funding council housing in 177 local authority areas.
 
The housing offer that John Healey has now put on the table for local government will release at least 10% more money (the equivalent of over £500m more per year nationally) in each council for maintaining and managing their stock of homes, and create the funding capacity to build over 10,000 new council homes across England each year. This would follow Labour’s current council new build programme which, with 87 councils involved in building 4,000 houses over this year and next, is the largest in two decades.
 
Leader of the Labour Group and Opposition, Cllr Gill Mitchell added,
“This is a change which tenants and Councillors have been calling for, and has cross party support at a National level. This is a real chance for radical change which will allow councils to do much more to provide improved services and better homes for people living in Brighton and Hove.
 
“Tenants living in Brighton and  Hove homes should expect better housing services from their council. Tenants whose homes have been upgraded through the Labour’s Decent Homes programme will have guaranteed funding for maintaining standard for the future – backed by the new national regulator, the Tenant Services Authority.”
 
Sarah Webb, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said:
 “We are delighted at the Government’s clear commitment to new council house building and are also very pleased that our work to help shape a new self-financing future for councils has been taken on board.”
 
In light of these new changes to the power that Conservative-led Brighton and Hove City Council will have over local housing, Cllr Gill Mitchell raised the following questions for the Tory administration in charge of housing in the City:
 
 1.  Are the Tories Nationally now committed to the Decent Homes programme?
 
 2.  Do local Tories agree with the Tory frontbench proposals to remove security of tenure for social housing tenants?

For more information about Labour view:
www.brightonhovelabour.com