News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from a reader known to OnTheWight, who has asked to remain anonymous. Ed
The Isle of Wight council agreed in February 2022 to borrow £40million to build houses for Islanders.
£2.5million was allocated to start a council-owned housing market.
Has the council accepted this amount and if so, where has it gone?
No room at the Inn
I find the Island is now beyond breaking point. A young, single man, went to the council yesterday, to be told there are no spaces in hostels, no emergency accommodation. No room at the Inn.
All they could offer was the street and a sleeping bag which would be dropped off at some point. Quite fitting with Christmas around the corner.
Purpose of the Homelessness Prevention Team?
In my view, the Homelessness Prevention Team seem to not have much of a purpose.
From the council’s statement on their own Website,
“Housing authorities are required to ensure that there is provision in place for rough sleepers during periods of extreme weather to prevent people dying on the streets in the cold.”
Obviously it’s OK to still sleep rough on the streets, unless it reaches zero degrees or below for three consecutive nights.
Nothing seems to improve
We all know by now what needs to change and what contributes to the crisis of housing on the Island, yet nothing seems to improve even though we have been told it takes time, but we have been told this for years now.
This has been allowed to happen with what purpose? How much more time is needed? Beating a dead horse comes to mind.
What are they not shouting from the rooftops?
Where are our councillors and our MP? Why do they not shout from the rooftops and demand from government, from Liz Truss, who has backed and promised that the Island Deal will happen, that the Island needs investment for it to survive.
I haven’t seen our MP, Bob Seely standing in Parliament to enforce this, standing his ground firmly, not pandering to whoever the Prime Minister might be at the time.
Planning strategy
The Draft Island Planning Strategy, which was voted on recently had 16 in favour, 18 against.
Surely there has been enough time given that will bring everyone together and agree on an action plan? The primary cause of the housing crisis is the lack of new houses being built and also affordability.
Council homes
From the 1980s, council houses were sold in their millions. The expectation, of course, was that the private sector would pick up the slack and make up any shortfall in Britain’s housing stock, but this hasn’t quite materialised, for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, ours is a small Island with relatively few areas that would traditionally be regarded as suitable for building programmes. It would possibly help if housing association homes were kept for Islanders.
Put the brakes on “house swapping”
Put the brakes on “house swapping” (at least while there is a shortage of homes for people living on the Island) with people from the mainland, who are able to jump the queue, avoiding Islandhomefinder as they do not need any links or connection to the Island whatsoever.
If they do have connection, for example moving away and wishing to come back, that should be taken into account.
Planning permission
Householders have an understandable desire to keep the exclusivity of their neighbourhoods intact, while the country at large baulks at the prospect of homes being built in areas of outstanding natural beauty.
This tends to encourage the relevant departments of local authorities to be extremely guarded about granting planning permission.
Land banking
There is a certain amount of land banking taking place.
In other words, property investors are holding on to land, that could be used for housing, until such time as the value of land reaches its peak.
Demand for residential properties pushes prices up to levels which are not affordable for the majority of first time buyers.
Saving for a deposit an almost insurmountable challenge
The problems experienced by those first time buyers are stagnant wages and low interest rates since the financial crisis, with another looming, which makes saving for a deposit seem like an almost insurmountable challenge.
In turn this increases demand for rental properties, with rents rising in response to this heightened demand.
Vicious circle
Accommodation costs therefore consume a disproportionately large chunk of a family’s income, seriously harming their quality of life, bringing debt and making food and bills unaffordable.
From the policy point of view, the cost of housing can weigh down on the public purse by increasing the housing benefit bill, which doesn’t cover the entirety of private rental costs which are surging.
Should we not expect more in 2022?
The divide between the have and have-nots increases every day, with those that can solve the problems slowly taking their time to even speak about housing, with very little action.
Should we not expect more in 2022?
Image: pedrosimoes7 under CC BY 2.0
