What a disgrace!
Thrift Place flats show up Labour’s failing housing policy
The IWCA has condemned Oxford City Council’s housing policy after repeated calls to address problems with the abandoned flats at Thrift Place have fallen on deaf ears.
The four flats were built over a year and half ago and were briefly occupied but then vacated and allowed to fall into disrepair. Local residents have complained on several occasions to Bromford Housing Association, which owns the properties.
Lee Cole, IWCA councillor for Blackbird Leys, said, ‘Apart from the disgrace of badly-needed new housing being allowed to fall into disrepair like this, the site now represents a danger to local kids who are no doubt tempted to enter the houses and get up to mischief inside. The derelict houses are also encouraging vandalism’
Cllr Cole raised this issue—for the second time—at the last full council meeting and was told the council couldn’t do anything about the problem because it doesn’t own the flats. Bromford Housing Association has apparently promised to start work on the site by November.
The IWCA was also hopeful that a meeting could be arranged between representatives from Bromford and local ward councillors to sort out some of the immediate problems but there is little sign of this going ahead.
Lee Cole explained, ‘The Labour Leader of the council, Alex Hollingsworth, promised to arrange a meeting when I spoke to him personally about the matter. However, that was several weeks ago and I’ve heard nothing since.’
‘If Bromford are really going to renovate the flats in November then that’s something but in the meantime the site is still a danger to the public and it can’t be left as it is until then.’
The derelict Thrift Place site is yet another example of the disarray New Labour’s housing policy is currently in.
Opposite the flats is waste ground where eighteen maisonettes used to stand. Although it is three years since these were demolished there is still no sign of progress in getting new homes built there.
With thousands of people on the council waiting list there is an urgent need for more affordable accommodation, particularly social housing, in Oxford. Despite often-repeated promises to build new homes, the local Labour Party has so far failed to make any noticeable difference to the housing situation.
For the last eight years the New Labour government has continued the Tory policy of restricting the ability of local authorities to build new council housing. This means the limited amount of new social housing being built is predominantly owned by housing associations.
Unlike local councils there are no democratic checks and balances over the way a housing association operates—allowing an organisation like Bromford to let its accommodation go to waste and become derelict, even to the extent that it poses a danger to the public.
Leys Independent, issue 29, August 2005
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