Housing

Flintshire People’s Voice believes that housing is a basic right. In the sixth largest economy in the world, in a country where there are enough houses for everyone if so many weren’t left empty, a system which leaves so many people homeless is a system that has failed. We believe that this is uncontroversial.

We support the expansion of good quality social housing, primarily Flintshire-owned council housing. This should include new social housing on brownfield sites, expanding the council house buyback scheme to reacquire those sold under right to buy, and creating a ‘right to rent’.

A right to rent would be a guarantee that, if you are an owner occupier and want to sell up, the council will guarantee to buy your home if you ask, and rent it back to you on a secure tenancy, making you a council tenant. This would not only grow the council’s housing stock, but would prevent dozens of cases of homelessness caused by mortgage repossessions as interest rates remain higher than the ten year average. It would also offer an alternative to predatory equity release companies for older people who wish to explore this option.

We will also prioritise the rapid turnover of council properties that become empty so they can be let to new tenants. The shocking failure of the current administration to get a grip on the number of void properties is a scandal. We will deliver this through a burst of increased spending on external contractors to complete necessary work, which will be more than recovered through the extra rent paid in the period the properties would otherwise sit empty.

Where new housing is built, we believe that this should both reflect local need, and form mixed communities. That means including bungalows to provide independence for an ageing population, ensuring all newly built homes in Flintshire are genuinely affordable for local people, and ensuring a high level of social housing on all new developments. Meeting local needs also means including vital facilities such as doctors surgeries in developments. Introducing these changes would bring an end to the scandal of speculator developers snapping up greenfield sites around Flintshire, leaving community facilities stretched, and running off with bumper profits. We will seek to enshrine these changes in a new Local Development Plan to provide high quality homes fit for the 21st century with 100% of all new developments having solar panels installed, and institute a total development ban where there is a risk of flooding either on the site, or as a result of the new development.

We further believe that the right to acquire land for housing at current usage value must be restored to local authorities.

Flintshire People’s Voice would like to see a Britain where houses are treated as homes, rather than as assets. In the meantime, we support calls for common-sense regulation to redress the unequal balance between tenants and landlords. In particular, we support:
– The end of no-fault evictions
– A right to keep a pet in private rented accommodation
– A council operated ‘report a rogue landlord’ service
– A ‘rogue landlord checker’ service listing those landlords successfully prosecuted for housing offences
– A mandatory licensing scheme to replace Rent Smart Wales’ registration scheme
– The creation of a Flintshire Tenants’ Union
– An October-March eviction ban, to prevent Winter homelessness
– The introduction of rent controls, with levels set by local authorities in response to local factors and the quality of properties
– Reliable, prompt enforcement by Flintshire County Council where offences are committed, or where there are environmental health issues at properties
– A local authority right of compulsory purchase where former council homes are now private lets.

We will also use the council’s powers to charge additional council tax on properties which are deliberately left empty, incentivising the return of these properties to occupation and allowing them to become homes once again.

In the worst case scenario, the council must be prepared to provide emergency support to all homeless people. We fully support the duty to provide a shelter bed to anybody in need, on top of other housing duties, and will resist attempts to reduce existing provision. Beyone emergency shelters, we believe in the housing first model, where homelessness is ended by providing housing, and addressing other issues, such as substance misuse or unemployment, afterwards. The alternative, where a homeless person must sort out all of their issues before being given housing support, has been shown to be counterproductive and only worsen problems.

Flintshire People’s Voice believes that the scandal of leasehold, and service charges on new-build estates, must be ended. We call for the immediate right of enfranchisement for £1 of all who have been subjected to the “fleecehold” scandal. We also seek to establish an offer to residents of service charge estates to switch their management company to one run by the council, in order to deliver better value for money and reduced service charges through economies of scale and ending charges for work which is not carried out. We would expect this to launch no later than the third year of an FPV administration.