Lib Dem Housing Hypocrisy

At South Area Planning Commitee on Thursday 2nd October, we were asked to approve an application for 17 residential units at 110-116 Elmore Street.

Islington Council's stated policy is that they will seek 50% affordable housing for all developments over 10 units. This development should have had at least 8 affordable units, yet the developer claimed he couldn't afford to provide any affordable housing.

The developer had an 'independent assessor's' report, which said the development was 'unviable', principally because he'd paid too much at auction for the site. And who did he buy the site off? - Islington Council. And there were the Lib Dems, supporting the developer's argument all the way, twisting the words of Council Policy, and saying that providing affordable housing was more-or-less an option for the developer if he felt like it.

The whole point of an affordable housing policy is to make sure we get affordable housing.

Along with Councillor Gary Doolan we bitterly opposed this application, and I said in the meeting that the argument put forward by the developer was clearly spurious, since the claimed unviability was entirely down to his own folly in paying too much for the site. Why should the less well-off people in Islington get pushed out yet again, just because this developer can't get his sums right? But the Lib Dems on the committee couldn't do enough to explain how policy had to be applied 'flexibly', and that a requirement for affordable housing had to be 'reasonable'. They all voted for the 100% private scheme in spite of the paper-thin arguments.

It is quite clear to me that the Lib Dems DO NOT WANT affordable housing if they can possibly avoid it, and are prepared to be sold almost any kind of a line by developers trying to wriggle out of it. In Westminster under Shirley Porter, this was called Gerrymandering. I'm not sure I can see the difference, except the Lib Dems haven't yet twigged that they are Gerrymandering themselves out of their own seats.