City dwellers’ county homes offer
Saturday 23rd May 2009, 8:25AM BST.
Londoners could be offered homes in Shropshire in a bid to free up social housing in the capital.
The plan has been put forward by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, as part of attempt to target serious overcrowding by 2016.
His idea is to tempt people currently living in homes that could accommodate larger families, to move to counties such as Shropshire and Cornwall.
But so far no approach has been made to authorities in Shropshire to see if they could help with the initiative.
Johnson’s housing director, Richard Blakeway, was yesterday reported as saying that the the mayor wanted to “scale up” a scheme already in place.
About 5,000 people are believed to on a waiting list for homes outside London. A meeting will take place in July to discuss funding for out-of-London homes.
Mr Blakeway said the mayor was determined to half the number of people living in seriously overcrowded conditions. The number is estimated by the housing charity Shelter to be about 15,000.
Steve Price, Shropshire Council’s assistant director for housing services, said: “Shropshire Council has yet to receive any correspondence regarding the housing initiative described by the Mayor of London.
“The council’s housing waiting list treats all applicants equally, although any applicant’s connection to the local area is taken into consideration when determining the allocation of houses.”
Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said he disagreed with the mayor’s idea. He said: “It’s not for him to dictate who we accommodate in Shropshire. I’m very concerned about these comments.
“We have a huge overcrowding issues here in Shropshire and I have hundreds of constituents coming to see me looking for homes and there is massive pressure on Severnside Housing as a result of a lack of funding from Government.
“There are many young people in Shropshire without homes so the idea of sending people here is ludicrous and unacceptable.
“Once we have no waiting lists for my constituents, then we might at some stage be able to discuss the issue.”
By Dave Morris and Rebecca Lawrence
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Too late. The brummies have bought it all up. Yow can’t get into South Shropshire even if yow try!
Report abuse
Will fight such a proposal tooth and nail. My constituents are facing a huge problem with lack of affordable housing. Their needs are the priority
Daniel Kawczynski MP
Report abuse
Daniel – are you saying the Conservative Mayor of London is wrong? On the face of it it doesn’t immediately give the impression of solution for either London or elsewhere but perhaps I shall listen to the idea first. Daniel you might try the same … you always appear to be against things before hearing all the detail – presumably you wouldn’t be against the idea if the people who came, in manageable numbers, brought investment, opportunity, jobs, additionall afordable housing and ‘youth’ in this ageing county – or should all of that just go to Telford and Wrekin
Report abuse
tj said:
“if the people who came, in manageable numbers, brought investment, opportunity, jobs, additionall afordable housing and ‘youth’ in this ageing county – or should all of that just go to Telford and Wrekin”
Who says they’ll bring any of the benefits you suggest? Telford already has a chronic shortage of social housing, with thousands on the waiting list. The town is haemorraghing jobs, our hospital is failing to meet the demands placed on it by the existing population and our road network is crumbling.
Presumably “tj” wants to add to these problems by building yet more housing on our dwindling stocks of open space – at least the former inner-city dwellers will feel at home when Telford has become one vast, over-crowded urban sprawl.
Report abuse
Rob,
I haven’t claimed any benefits for Shropshire or Telford or Wrekin.. what I have said , if you read carefully, was meant as a little reminder for the MP to listen before condemning any new idea’s (I did also say that on the face of it it doesn’t seem a solution for London or elsewhere – but you didn’t mention that bit), as he has a tendency to respond first and think later. My later point is that there does appear to be an attempt by T&W, even if you don’t agree on how they’re doing it, to attract investment, jobs etc ..something that is not repeated on the same scale as elsewhere in the county
Report abuse
With free movement of people in Europe, why can’t the Labour voting Cockneys go to Poland?
They won’t like it here. They will just moan because we kill things and smoke in pubs.
Report abuse
The rich from the south already move to Shropshire to buy homes in attractive locations ie Ludlow and Church Stretton. Would it make any difference for Telford to accomadate some of the less well off Southerners?
I very much doubt it
Report abuse
You probably weren’t in this area in the late seventies Y Mab but because of the influx of “outsiders” to the area and the lack of local jobs, we then had one of the country’s “blackspots” for unemployment (and probably crime). What you are suggesting would again cause this area to be a low paid,un-employment “blackspo”.
Report abuse
I think merc (#1) is right. I saw an advert in the Birmingham post by a Shropshire estate agent which said “Come to Shropshire – its bostin!”
Report abuse