Examination of Witnesses (Questions 156
- 159)
MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2007
COUNCILLOR ANGELA
HARVEY AND
MS ROSEMARY
WESTBROOK
Q156 Mr Hands:
Kicking off, one of the fundamental issues in your report is that
Westminster is simply too expensive for those on low incomes and
those on medium incomes to be able to afford to live with even
quite large subsidies. Realistically, what do you think the Council
can do to house people on low incomes? Do you think it is a realistic
goal in Westminster?
Councillor Harvey: Yes, it is
a realistic goal. We want a community that is cohesive, that is
mixed; we are in real danger at the moment of only the very poor
and the very rich being able to move into properties here. Although
sitting in this part of Westminster we look pretty rich, we do
have wards, Church Street, for example, which is one of the most
deprived wards in the country, yet we manage to have a city council
ALMO with rising tenant satisfaction there. The importance is
we have a very diverse community already and we do not want to
have a situation where, because of the direction of funds outside
London generally into the growth areas, people who want to stay
with their families within Westminster and other London boroughs
should be excluded from doing so. It will lead to a less cohesive
community and certainly a breakdown in community relations.
Q157 Mr Hands:
You mention the very poor and rich being able to live in Westminster.
What about the low/medium kind of income person, say, somebody
who is in a job but earning, let's say, between 12-20,000 a year?
What options are there?
Councillor Harvey: If they are
vulnerable in need, and we have about 5,000 families falling into
that category waiting at the moment, they will eventually be housed.
Many of those are housed outside Westminster, about half of our
people in temporary accommodation are outside Westminster, the
rest within, so we are meeting those demands, but to move them
into permanent accommodation is a real problem for us at the moment,
as funds have been directed out of all of the London boroughs
to the growth areas.
Ms Westbrook: On the intermediate
point particularly, working households between 12,000 and 45,000
who still could not afford to buy outright in Westminster, we
recently had an independent housing commission working with us
looking at the evidence and giving advice, and a couple of things
came out of that. First, in terms of that intermediate group,
who should we be housing, and there is some evidence that key
worker policies are not really appropriate in somewhere like Westminster
and central London and that we should be looking at income levels,
and in terms of maintaining communities, looking at children of
existing residents, or tenants and people living in the borough
already, giving them opportunities to remain near to families.
In terms of how we can make that happen I think we do need to
look at the range of intermediate housing options and make them
much more customer-focused rather than delivering products and
then saying: "Well, this is it, will it suit or not?"
Because there are some evidence right across London that a lot
of shared equity and shared ownership options directed at simply
key workers and the public sector have not been popular, have
taken a long time to sell, and have ended up being sold not to
those priority groups but we know that there is a large group
of people in work, but in low paid work who need to access those
options.
Q158 Chair: On
that point, why exactly are those key worker houses not attractive
to key workers, given there are lots of key workers who work in
London and cannot afford to buy?
Ms Westbrook: Anecdotally the
evidence is around quality location, basically.
Q159 Chair: In
which case they would not be attractive to other workers, either.
Ms Westbrook: Well, it widens
the range of people who might be interested, and they might be
people who already live in those areas—not specifically
in Westminster. The other issue is about cost, and certainly in
Westminster it is extremely difficult to make shared equity work
at a level which anybody with those intermediate incomes can afford,
so you are constantly pushed up towards the top end of those incomes,
and we do need to look at products which move that back down allowing
people to take much lower equity shares to start with and to get
started. Also, when you look at the size of properties, again
because of cost issues that have been produced in terms of shared
ownership, they are all one or two bed-roomed flats, so absolutely
nothing for somebody who might be a public sector worker or might
be in that intermediate sector, in the private sector but on a
low income and need to live in central London near to work, but
if they have children the options for them are very limited indeed.
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