Far too much social housing in Islington
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2010-08-15 19:30."there is a desperate shortage....Our biggest aim is to build more social housing in Islington"
As a letter in the Trib pointed out the other week, Islington has waaay too much social housing already, at some 44% of the borough being in the hands of the State (the local authority) or quasi-State entities like Housing Associations. The London average is 26% and the national average is 18%. Only the most feckless and irresponsible from the "priority" list ever get a tenancy under the present "needs" based allocation scheme. The employed have got no chance. Concentrating "deprivation" and self created deprivation in most cases at that. Nobody asked the benefit dependent single parents to have so many kids at the expense of the taxpayer did they? They get away with it because the keys to a council flat are the reward...
Islington should be selling it's bloated social housing stock to repay the debt it owes to the Government, certainly not building any more. That would indeed be a toxic legacy...