3400 people still on East herts housing waiting list still more homes needed

About 3,400 people are currently on East Herts Council’s housing register and a points system aims to prioritise those cases most in need. Changes to the system to make it fairer for all were proposed in March and introduced in May. They included new registration criteria, a maximum household income cap and more preference for those already living within the district. Since the changes, the waiting list has dropped from 3,600. I myself am on the waiting list for a council flat in the Hertford or Ware area and I’ve been bidding for properties for a good few years now. Quite clearly even in East Hertfordshire which isn’t a big area there is still huge demand for homes and affordable ones at that. With the possible development of Harlow North still undecided it is key housing is part of a development of the region. In ware and surrounding areas there is a lot of private renting going on and very little in the way of council properties. The council are claiming a drop in 200 off the waiting list in the last year which could have come about due to these so called changes to the points system brought in and also those who like me who have to renew their interest every so often may have missed out perhaps due to not remembering to renew. It is clear that there is a need for new council homes which young people in the area could benefit from who have to live at home with their parents due to the inability to move out to a place of their own. I will be told people can still rent in a private property but this is all very ell but we do live in an expensive area for renting. We live on the commuter belt to London and as a result rental prices are very expensive around the 500 pound mark and more. SO what we do need is more council homes being built. Affordable housing is a confusing concept officially it can mean 80% of market value which around here is still very unaffordable to many. So I’d suggest we need a rent control system with a cap on rents that landlords can charge as a first step. With this as a start and a development of new council homes a cap on rents not benefits could really start to help ease the situation. Of course this would have to be planned democratically and used sensibly with the input of local people and those on the waiting lists. We have a housing crisis in East Herts too aswell as elsewhere in the country this is an urgent problem that needs to be tackled. I don’t think there can be a solution or at least a long term one under capitalism. We do need a democratic socialist plan for housing to meet the needs of the people.

Cyprus bailout, poor suffer while bond holders are protected

As another EU country goes for another financial bailout affecting millions and potentially having a larger knock on affect the crisis in the Euro zone goes from bad to worse. The emerging details of the so-called bailout agreement with Cyprus indicate that there is no change in the recipe book of Troika bailouts – senior bondholders will be protected while working people will be crucified. Small deposit holders in Cypriot banks will lose 6.75% of their savings overnight, while international speculators and bondholders are protected. The hawks of global capitalism are using the crisis to impose their neo-liberal model of capitalism to increase their profits. A €1.4bn privatisation programme will see Cypriot public services run down and sold off at rock bottom prices. This seems to be the worst of a bad lot of so-called bailouts. People in Cyprus now face a future of vicious austerity and devastation of society that point towards a Greek situation of societal collapse. Austerity policies have devastated economies across Europe. The eurozone has returned to recession and the EU as a whole saw a collapse of GDP of 0.6% in the last quarter of last year alone. Why are these policies still being pursued despite the clear evidence that they don’t work from the point of view of the economy as a whole? Because austerity is working – it’s working for the bondholders and speculators whose debts are being repaid and for a section of big business who have increased profits off the back of attack on wages and conditions. It underlines the need for common struggle and resistance across Europe and for a programme for radical socialist change – repudiating the debts to the bondholders, public investment to create jobs, and democratic planning of our economies to redevelop our economies in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner.” With extracts from Paul Murphy MEP of the socialist party http://www.paulmurphymep.eu/cyprus-bailout-ordinary-householders-paying-for-senior-bondholders?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

40 new council homes to be built in Stevenage what about the 7k on waiting list?

The labour run Stevenage Borough council was trumpeting its new announcement of 40 new council homes to be built in the Broadwater area of the town. This is clearly welcome news but does labour think for one minute this is a big success story they should be cheering about? Of course as socialists we support new council homes being built but 40? Is that all? Surely we’ve miss read the numbers here there is 7000 on the waiting list for a council house in Stevenage and with a aging population we are told this will only increase in the years to come. So labour please doesn’t go cheering this tiny little dent in the waiting list it’s a drop in the ocean if ever I saw one. Socialists will support any move towards more council housing but only a programme of mass building on a mass scale enabling construction and building workers to go back to work too can have an affect. Across the country there is an estimated 5 million on the waiting list which is growing all the time. So labour if you want to appear radical do not get us excited by 40 new homes about adding some 0’s onto the end of that then we may be getting somewhere . This is just not good enough and for labour to announce this as a big success is a disgrace. Given the fact that this year in their budget proposals the labour council in Stevenage plan to increase social tenants rent by an average of 5% possibly more if they can get away with it. Is this rent increase directed at the most venerable and some of the poorest in the town going to build these new homes? If it is it’s another example of taking from peter to give to Paul robbing from the poor to help other poor people ultimately helps no one. TUSC who will be standing in Stevenage this year in the country council elections will be standing for a mass council house building programme on a mass scale to meet the needs of the people of Hertfordshire not just the property and housing developers who will be making big money out of new housing projects no doubt.

Time to renationalise the railways, let’s do it properly this time

With today’s news of further huge fare hikes for the good commuter of this country getting to work will be set to become more expensive than ever before. I believe now is the right time to renationalise our railways bring them back under democratic workers control this time. Boot the profiteering boss’s out and have workers who know the railways run this. This is the RMT’s policy and I strongly support it. The amount by which rail fares could rise from January is to be revealed, with some commuters set to see rises of more than double the rate of inflation. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation - expected to remain at 2.8% - is used to calculate the rises. Some English fares will rise by RPI plus 3%, while in Scotland they will go up by RPI plus 1%. Wales has yet to set a figure for its increase. The extra money is helping to fund huge investment across the network. There are no fares increases currently planned in Northern Ireland, where fares are not linked to RPI. The figures for planned rises in England and Scotland are an average across regulated tickets, which make up half of all fares. These regulated fares include season tickets and off-peak intercity journeys. Some passengers could see their journey prices rising by more than the average, as train companies are allowed to increase them by more, as long as they cut ticket prices elsewhere. BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott says passengers and taxpayers used to split the cost of running the railways, with both sides paying about half each, but successive ministers have cut the amount of government funding and that has resulted in regular fare rises. The latest rise will mean fares in England will have gone up by more than inflation for 10 successive years, resulting in some of the most expensive train journeys in Europe, our correspondent adds. It is essential working people have a good railway to rely on it would actually be far cheaper to run the railways this way the cost to passengers would be far less too as workers would set the prices at a fair rate as the need to make profit would be gone. Instead focusing on a good reliable service that meets the needs of the passengers and the country and economy as a whole. There is a great need for socialist economic planning of the economy nationalising the railways could be the first step to taking the commanding heights of the economy into public ownership running for people’s needs not the profits of the boss’s.