Top stories

The crisis in housing

Morley Observer/Advertiser 2007 In reply to your front page feature two weeks ago about affordable housing to be built on the ex-Glendale House site. If the Leader of Leeds City Council, Coun Andrew Carter, and the Morley Borough Independents (MBI) were as interested in trying to solve the housing crisis as they appear to be at having their photos and press releases in the papers all the time, then surely they woyld have attended the public meeting at Leeds University last Friday night. As far as I know, there was only one Leeds city councillor who bothered to turn up for such an important meeting as the Leeds PFI housing crisis, just waiting to happen! Home ownership is not an option for at least 30 per cent of the people in Leeds. By 2016, Leeds could have lost 20,000 council homes to privatisation and demolition. What is Leeds Council’s strategy for increasing social housing? Why is Leeds Council demolishing council houses when there is a housing crisis? Can the Private Finance Initiative and other public-private partnerships regenerate housing estates at the same time? The Morley Borough Independents seem to have rolled over in the long grass with everything that the PFI schemes can buy and if Leeds Council say jump the MBI shout back, how far! Coun Albert Slingsby Independent