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Congleton Liberal DemocratsCampaigning all year round for the people of Congleton, Holmes Chapel, Alsager, Middlewich, Sandbach and surrounding areas. |
Libdems call for Decent Houses
January 6, 2009 5:00 PM
Peter Hirst and Julia Goldworthy MP call for Decent Homes
Housing policy has recently become a vital part of all political parties' agendas and those who remember the last mortgage crisis under the Conservatives will never want to experience the same situation again. The Liberal Democrats have developed a range of policies to combat the present situation that help those effected while taking action to replenish our stock of social housing. This, a safety net of houses to rent in England, has fallen by 450,000 from 1997-2006 to just 3.936 million as the number of households on social housing waiting lists has risen almost 70% to 1.67 million.
We would introduce regulated Mortgage Rescue Schemes to allow families struggling with repayments to sell all or part of the equity in their house and rent it back from a housing association or private firm to help keep them in their home. Courts, under our proposals, would be given guidelines to only allow homes to be repossessed in extreme circumstances and as a measure of last resort, making the mortgage lenders' voluntary code binding on all lenders. We would also allow councils and housing associations to take advantage of the depressed market and borrow money against their assets to buy up land and empty new homes for use as social housing.
These plans, could be funded using money already committed to social housing but currently unspent because of the collapse of new building. They would mean that the enormous sums spent on re-housing the homeless would be saved without giving open-ended guarantees for new mortgage lending. I believe these measures would do much to reverse the adverse effects of previous governments' policies on providing an affordable roof over all our citizens' heads.
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