Build council homes and flats for private sale would not be necessary

• I WAS happy to read that rather than moving Islington residents out of the borough James Dunnett is advocating stopping people coming in, (London is not Hong Kong and housing density matters, March 1).

So his words will not apply to households on Islington’s Council housing waiting list which requires a residence qualification to permit inclusion. Many of these households have lived in the borough for years and have close links to their communities.

Therefore I can only assume he was referring to the people who buy the plethora of flats for private sale which have been, and are still being, built in our borough, often by housing associations, such as those on the New Barnsbury Estate and the Holloway Prison site development.

These private sales are unaffordable to Islington residents in housing need and so have added to the population density in recent years as buyers move into the borough.

Meanwhile our central government’s ever-increasing budgetary restraints on local government mean that Islington Council struggles to find funds to build the council flats desperately needed by 15,000 established households in the borough.

It was Tory governments which brought in tenants’ right to buy council homes (now discontinued in Scotland and Wales), meaning the loss of over two million council homes in the United Kingdom since 1980 to date and the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which ended public accountability of housing associations (while still awarding them grants of public money).

With government encouragement housing associations are interested now in building shared-ownership and privately-owned flats.

As a consequence, in order to build homes for council rent, Islington Council has to compromise by allowing housing associations and developers to build flats for private sale and shared ownership on the same site – usually in greater numbers.

With a government policy focused on the need to build council homes, the thousands of flats being built for private sale would not be necessary and population density would be much less of a problem.

As I have said before, Mr Dunnett needs to focus his complaints about population density elsewhere while, of course, he would be welcome to join Islington Homes for All in our campaigning for policies based on the urgent need for council homes without the construction of yet more private flats in our borough.

JENNY KASSMAN
Islington Homes for All