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Right-to-buy pricing people out of area
CONTINUED sale of council houses to tenants will create "monolithic" communities where poorer families are priced out of neighbourhoods, Clive Betts has warned.
The Attercliffe MP is the second South Yorkshire MP in less than a month to criticise the almost 30-year-old policy of allowing council tenants to buy their home at a discounted value.
The Labour MP for Sheffield Attercliffe said right-to-buy – a flagship policy of Margaret Thatcher's Tory government – was causing "real worry" in parts of his constituency.
Speaking in a high-profile Commons debate he highlighted the impact it has had on the former mining village of Mosborough.
He told MPs: "That village has a heart to it, and part of that heart is a small number of rented properties that are owned by Sheffield Homes.
"Enormous numbers of private homes have been built in the area."
He said many middle-aged constituents had bought private homes in the village but were then unable to help their elderly parents move to nearby properties because of a lack of council homes.
He admitted "there is a place for the right to buy" but also warned "monolithic communities of owner-occupiers will be created and there will not be any opportunity for people who cannot afford to buy to live in those areas".
His comments follow a call from Rotherham MP Denis MacShane for the Labour Government to put the right-to-buy policy on the "sacrificial block".
Meanwhile, Mr Betts also condemned attempts by developers to segregate privately owned homes from social houses.
He said he has seen evidence of how private housing is built with "nice quality" landscape, while social homes which are built as a requirement of planning permission are "tucked away" at the back of sites "almost as an embarrassment".
He said: "In some cases, a wall is built around such units to separate them from the private housing and prevent too much contamination between the two lots of residents. That must stop."
Although he did not name any such developments in Sheffield, he said he had encountered an "us and them" attitude between private owners and council tenants in the city.
"At a recent public meeting about how to develop a new site in my constituency, such an attitude was shown by a constituent who said to me, 'We aren't going to have any of those people living here, are we?'."
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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