Councillors call for house-building on former school sites
Monday, 28th July 2014.
Haverhill's two UKIP county councillors have made a public plea for Suffolk to take action on the current shortage of housing land.
Cllrs Tony Brown and Julian Flood have written an open letter to Suffolk County Council's cabinet member for resource management and waste, Cllr Jenny Antill.
In it they refer to a failed council motion which they made to encourage the release of brownfield land, making it easier for developers and housing associations to provide starter homes in Suffolk.
They say Suffolk owns brownfield land which it holds to sell to the highest bidder.
This includes large areas which were the sites of now redundants middle schools like Castle Hill and Chalkstone, which they say should be made available to developers for housing.
They say: "Wwe have been elected to improve the quality of life of our residents.
"Suffolk County Council should, as a matter of urgency:
1 Identify brownfield sites that can be developed quickly for social housing and industrial development;
2 Engage with other landowners, eg St Edmundsbury Borough Council, whose landholdings could contribute to rapid and low-cost development;
3 Apply to the Secretary of State for Education for all old school sites to be released immediately for development;
4 Build SCC-owned council houses on SCC land as is happening in Sutton;
5 Campaign for a change in Government Policy so that 100 per cent of Right To Buy income is returned to SCC for further house building."
The councillors say they became aware of the issue through campaigning against plans by Havebury Housing Partnership to demolish garages on council estates and build new homes on the sites.
"The matter is urgent," the say. "We need action now. There is a developing theme here, a similarity across different areas of responsibility in which local government is failing - our roads are a crumbling disgrace; waiting times for GP appointments stretch to weeks; the mix of free, foundation and county schools makes improving school standards an almost impossible task; our towns are asked to accept huge over-development with the Section 106 funding lag meaning that problems will build up before the infrastructure is there to deal with them.
"We can't go on like this. The current policies on low-cost and social housing are not failing - they have failed. It is time to address that failure."
Cllrs Tony Brown and Julian Flood have written an open letter to Suffolk County Council's cabinet member for resource management and waste, Cllr Jenny Antill.
In it they refer to a failed council motion which they made to encourage the release of brownfield land, making it easier for developers and housing associations to provide starter homes in Suffolk.
They say Suffolk owns brownfield land which it holds to sell to the highest bidder.
This includes large areas which were the sites of now redundants middle schools like Castle Hill and Chalkstone, which they say should be made available to developers for housing.
They say: "Wwe have been elected to improve the quality of life of our residents.
"Suffolk County Council should, as a matter of urgency:
1 Identify brownfield sites that can be developed quickly for social housing and industrial development;
2 Engage with other landowners, eg St Edmundsbury Borough Council, whose landholdings could contribute to rapid and low-cost development;
3 Apply to the Secretary of State for Education for all old school sites to be released immediately for development;
4 Build SCC-owned council houses on SCC land as is happening in Sutton;
5 Campaign for a change in Government Policy so that 100 per cent of Right To Buy income is returned to SCC for further house building."
The councillors say they became aware of the issue through campaigning against plans by Havebury Housing Partnership to demolish garages on council estates and build new homes on the sites.
"The matter is urgent," the say. "We need action now. There is a developing theme here, a similarity across different areas of responsibility in which local government is failing - our roads are a crumbling disgrace; waiting times for GP appointments stretch to weeks; the mix of free, foundation and county schools makes improving school standards an almost impossible task; our towns are asked to accept huge over-development with the Section 106 funding lag meaning that problems will build up before the infrastructure is there to deal with them.
"We can't go on like this. The current policies on low-cost and social housing are not failing - they have failed. It is time to address that failure."
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