The
Andrew Turner column
Some colleagues at
Westminster are openly
envious of how beautiful
the Island is – many of
them take short breaks
here and tell me what a
lovely place it is.
They are right of course. But
we know there are also hidden
problems – and one of those is the
cost and availability of housing for
local people. Last year a quarter of
Island households were receiving
means tested benefits and the
average income was just a little
over £16,000. Many families are
forced to rent a house – and with
starter properties often costing over
£85,000 purchasing a home can be
simply an unaffordable dream.
Because the Island is such a
pleasant place to live it has always
attracted ‘benefit tourists’; people
who have no intention of working
but quite simply prefer to be
unemployed in a pleasant seaside
town instead of an overcrowded
city centre. In our topsy-turvy,
politically correct world we were
always told that our Council was
forced to provide housing to such
people, whilst people who had
been on local housing lists for years
were pushed down the queue and
in reality had little chance of ever
being offered a home.
I was very pleased that
one of the early actions
of the new Council was
to award extra points to
genuine, long-standing
Island residents on
the housing list.
It
has not completely
solved the problem as
I am sure that demand
will always outstrip
supply, but at least now
I hear fewer stories of
people coming from
the mainland; declaring
themselves homeless
and jumping straight to
the front of the housing queue.
Some families rent privately,
sometimes paying out more in rent
than they would for a mortgage.
They would love to own their own
home but simply can’t get onto the
first rung of the housing ladder. I
would like the Council to help those
people as well – and I am glad to see
they are now thinking hard about
how to do that. They are looking
at how they can be sure that newly
built low cost homes will go to
Island people. In order to do so they
will have to think up imaginative
solutions to get around insidious
government guidance, endless
bureaucracy and pettifogging
regulations.
Central Government fails to
understand that people live in
communities, rather than artificially
contrived regions, and that every
community has different needs.
There seems to be no recognition
that our problems require different
solutions from Basingstoke and
Milton Keynes.
As I recover slowly but surely from
the stroke I suffered in December I
wish the Council well in developing
policies that put the needs of
Islanders first and give extra help
to those residents who need it.
Even more, I am looking forward to
seeing good ideas turn into reality
– even if some people think they are
politically incorrect!
Island Life - www.isleofwight.net
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