Over Christmas and in the middle of winter, homelessness rightly has a greater prominence in our minds as we think about those less fortunate than ourselves. Housing homeless people is a key function for local authorities such as Crawley Borough Council. Crawley needs a variety of housing tenures, including of course council housing.
Very few council houses were built under the last Labour Government from 1997 to 2010, so to encourage the building of new council homes, the previous Coalition Government changed national policy in 2012 that enabled local councils to keep more money from Right To Buy sales, so long as it was used for new affordable housing within three years. If the council fails to use the money for new affordable housing within three years, it has to be paid back to central government with interest. Prior to 2012, most of Right To Buy sales had to be paid to central government.
Unfortunately, Labour councillors who are in political control of Crawley council have taken their eye off the ball. It was very disappointing to recently discover that Crawley Borough Council has lost £1.24 million from Right To Buy council house sales that was earmarked to be re-invested in new council housing plus an additional £190,000 in interest. What made it worse was a failing to inform opposition Conservative councillors and especially Crawley council tax payers, in a shameful attempt by Labour to bury bad news.
It took a motion tabled by Conservative councillors at the full council meeting of two weeks ago, calling for an urgent explanation as to what had happened, and for measures to be put in place to stop any repeat of this fiasco, for everything to come out into the open. I wonder whether all the in-fighting within Crawley Labour, as various Labour Councillors try to ‘out-Corbyn’ each other in trying to be selected in January to become the Labour parliamentary candidate in Crawley, has been a factor in the council losing £1.4 million of your money? Certainly, this distraction of a bitter internal contest involving Labour councillors could not have been helpful.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
27th December 2017