[05
APR 00] COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL NEWS
'Bulldoze Foleshill' Call By Council
BY ANTONY HOPKER
A fifth of people
living in Foleshill in Coventry are in unsuitable accommodation –
and their houses should be bulldozed and re-built according to a city
councillor.
Experts
carrying out a study for Coventry City Council found that the number
of people with serious housing needs in the area was as high as some
inner-city areas in London.
The
suitability of a house is calculated by its condition, facilities and
its size. Many of those that fall below the mark in Foleshill are
owner-occupied.
Overall
the city had a lower than average number of households needing serious
improvement – around eight per cent.
But
this figure was inflated by the results of the survey in St
Michael’s, Upper Stoke and Foleshill wards.
Cllr
Peter Lacy (Labour, Sherbourne), chairman of the committee, said:
“We
need to be looking at the those properties in Foleshill that are
owner-occupied and see what can be done.
“The
best thing we could do is get a bulldozer, and go through the lot of
them, but if we knock them down and build new houses the people
living there wouldn’t be able to afford them.
“If
we knocked them down and replaced them with socially-rented property
the current occupiers wouldn’t go for them because of the loss of
prestige.”
An
analysis of the cost of housing revealed that nearly three-quarters of
people living in Coventry cannot afford to buy or rent homes at the
market rate.
Housing
expert Richard Fordham told the city council’s Housing Policy Team
that the idea of building “low-cost” houses to be sold on the
market was a nonsense.
He
said:
“The
government guidance on this is worse than useless. Low-cost market
housing is twice as expensive to build as social housing.
“People
cannot afford the cheapest housing on the market that matches their
needs.”
Dr
Fordham added that Coventry has a high number of people with special
needs in the city – around 14 per cent of the population as opposed
to an 11 per cent national average.
And
he said people’s difficulties with housing was set to soar in the
next few years, with another 26,000 homes being needed.
He
added:
“This
does not mean that 26,000 houses must be built, because some of those
needs will be meet by re-letting houses that become available.
“But
taking that into account there is still a need for 11,000 houses.”
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