Bad deal for taxpayers

Published: 25 February 2010

• I WAS pleased to  see that the Tory parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn now agrees that the decision to sell off council houses made by those in his party and the Liberal Democrats controlling Camden Council represents a bad deal for the local taxpayer, with some private developers pocketing vast profits of hundreds of thousands of pounds in the space of a few short months (Bonanza at expense of taxpayers, February 18).
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats seem to shrug their shoulders, suggesting the decision to sell our council houses was inevitable, and offer a lukewarm reflection that “we wish we didn’t have to do this”.
I suspect with elections later this year we will see more retrospective rewriting of this ill-thought-through decision.
In truth there was nothing inevitable about this whatsoever.
The decision was not only economically knuckle-headed but morally dubious, what with the enormous number of struggling families on the waiting list for council housing in the borough.
I fear it is one our next generations will come to deeply regret.
ROB HIGSON
NW2