15 December - Two very annoying words
Modern life is very annoying, full of injustices, idiocies
sometimes known as political correctness, and snowflakes ready to be offended by
terms such as White Christmas.
Fortunately I’m not easily stressed and shrug it off. If it were otherwise I would be constantly enraged
by things such as today’s letter from the IPCC which says it will be a minimum of ten weeks before
the Appeal against the Metropolitan Police’s whitewash job is allocated to a case worker.
However just two words can make me very annoyed indeed.
They are in no particular order homes and affordable. No home is truly
affordable any more, not like while still little more than an office junior I
wandered into the Headquarters of the Lambeth Building Society and left one half
hour interview later with a 90% mortgage on a £3,400 flat.
My first 20 years of life were spent in various council houses, my parent’s
council houses obviously, and I have never been homeless. I rented a house for
three or four months and hated it. Hence the trip to Lambeth
The rent on the last council house vacated in 1963 was £12.8s.4d per calendar month.
I have no idea what my father was earning at the time but whatever it was
housing was never an issue. It was something pretty much everyone took for granted.
Not any more.
Obviously the population level has been allowed to grow far to high and with it
the price of housing. So called affordable housing is now out of reach to
everyone on average pay who does not have an account with The Bank of Mum and Dad.
I know of 40 year old men with reasonable jobs who still flat share, and not from choice.
It is a national disgrace.
So what is Bexley Council doing about the affordable home situation? Does it take the issue seriously? It would appear not. Lack of
time and expertise prevents BiB delving deeply into planning matters, that is something best left to
fromthemurkydepths, but the following comes from Labour party sources.
• Permission was granted in 2016 for 359 homes at Maxim Road in Crayford. The permission includes zero affordable homes.
• Permission was granted in 2015 for 600 homes at Erith Quarry. The
permission includes zero affordable homes. This development is currently being constructed.
• Permission was granted in 2012 for 192 units at the former Bexley
College site in Belvedere. It includes 34 shared ownership units with zero
affordable rented units. Building of this development has recently been concluded.
• A variation of a condition to build 402 units at Belvedere Park was
granted in 2010. This allowed the developer to scrap the original approval to
include 62 affordable homes. As a result, the final scheme concluded in 2016 includes zero affordable homes.