Affordable Housing — House of Lords, 2015-06-25
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling this debate. My comments today deal with a particular problem that arises with the availability of affordable housing in the Lake District, where a voluntary organisation, the Keswick Community Housing Trust, part of the National Community Land Trust Network, is struggling to deal with a local housing crisis. Trust members and supporters, many of whom are motivated by their Christian beliefs, are truly upset by the prospect of being forced to sell off their cherished housing stock. In that light I asked its chairman, Mr Bill Bewley, a prominent Quaker, to set out in a letter the concerns of the trust, which I now offer to the House as testimony from those on the front line in this debate: "Dear Dale … First of all a short explanation of how Keswick Community Housing Trust came into existence and my motivation, with others, to forward its aims. KCHT was started by myself and a group of people who had been empowered by a series of meetings organised by Churches Together in Keswick, looking at all aspects of life in Keswick. At all five meetings the problem of a lack of affordable housing in Keswick was raised. Keswick suffers from the double blow of high house prices and low wages. In order to afford an average priced house in Keswick you would need a family income of £70,000. The average wage in Keswick for 2014 was £14,000 for the lowest 25%. So a quarter of the couples in Keswick could not even afford half the cost of an average house. After a public meeting to look at this very point we were strengthened by more … committed people. So in December 2010 we managed to formally establish Keswick Community Housing Trust as an Industrial and Provident Society with Charitable Status. We have a board of 12 active volunteers My motivation is based on my deeply held Quaker convictions. If the words of Jesus ‘To love God and your neighbour as yourself" mean anything it means to do whatever you can to make a difference in your community. I feel I can do that as Chair of KCHT. Quakers have always had a concern for ‘proper housing’. The Cadbury’s Bourneville and Rowntree’s New Earswick housing schemes strongly demonstrate this. Present day Quakers are also involved in this area with Quaker Housing Trust, Quaker Social Action and The Joseph Rowntree Trust. Others on my board are motivated by a desire to keep Keswick a vibrant community, which is very close in our view to what David Cameron may have had in mind when he so powerfully spoke of ‘The Big Society’. We are the living and working proof of that, now-a-days, less mentioned initiative. We completed our first project of 11 3-bed houses in November 2013. One was for local occupancy sale, five for shared ownership and five for affordable rent. In order to keep the shared ownership affordable we do not charge rent on our half. Our current rents are below the National Housing Federation’s target of affordability. If we take the previously quoted income figure of £14,000, a couple in the lower quartile could earn £28,000 so rent should be less than £7,000 pa (25% of income). Our rents are currently just over £6,000 pa The above financial model is very secure for the moment unless an earthquake in the form of the ‘Right to Buy’ strikes. If this scheme should badly affect Keswick Community Housing Trust, it will make all of our houses unaffordable and destroy all our hard work. We are currently two months away from refurbishing a disused building into 4 x 1-bed units and 18 months from completing a further 22 affordable homes. These projects were financed using our existing houses as assets, and should we lose a significant number we would be unable to finance future developments. This is because our assets would have been jeopardised by loss of collateral. We all feel very proud of the fact that in under seven years we will have delivered 37 affordable properties to help keep Keswick a vibrant community. We would be heartbroken if all the thousands of hours spent on this fantastic community effort, was taken away from us by some ill thought out idea. I have recently visited Bulgaria, where in the last 20 years over half of the villages have become deserted due to rural decline. I do not want this to happen in Keswick or anywhere else. Just a few years ago, David Cameron was happy to take a drink with Rory Stewart and others"— he is a local MP— "to celebrate the work of the Lyvennet housing trust. The Trust had delivered a scheme of 16 affordable houses in Crosby Ravensworth, not far from Keswick. Surely this is the height of hypocrisy in the present light. There are hardly any spare sites in that village and certainly not enough to replace all the houses they have already built, should they be forced to sell them. It is absolutely imperative that this impending disaster is NOT allowed to happen The special problem in Keswick is that we need to provide truly affordable housing for people who work here on low wages and to RETAIN available affordable housing against a property market which attracts high prices from wealthy purchasers nationwide seeking second homes or to retire here. To grant a ‘Right to Buy’ measure in the proposed form defeats the object of our charitable trust and totally undermines our … efforts. I ask you to do all in your power to prevent the ‘Right to Buy’ being imposed on Community Land Trusts like ourselves. Larger Housing Associations should be adequately compensated for any loss they could incur" That is signed by Mr Bill Bewley, a man who, with his colleagues, has made a huge contribution, and it would be absolutely wrong if people like that were stopped in their tracks because of the madness of the policies that the Government are going to pursue.