Tory council leader brands Healey attack ‘whiffle’ and calls for a mature debate on housing
Greenhalgh rejects ‘secret plans’ jibe
The Conservative leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council has attacked Labour Party efforts to single out his controversial ideas as part of its election strategy.
Stephen Greenhalgh was targeted by housing minister John Healey at last week’s Labour Party conference.
The minister quoted from notes of a discussion on the possibilities for radical deregulation of social housing, hosted by think tank Localis and Mr Greenhalgh.
Mr Healey suggested the Hammersmith & Fulham leader was behind ‘secret’ Conservative Party plans to treble social rents and ‘frighten’ tenants.
But at this week’s Conservative Party conference Mr Greenhalgh dismissed the attack as ‘whiffle’ and expressed surprise that his ideas on housing had drawn government fire. ‘I find it a bit ironic that the debate is led by someone like Hammersmith & Fulham,’ Mr Greenhalgh told Conservative Party delegates.
Referring to the housing minister as ‘some bloke who looks like an accountant’, Mr Greenhalgh retorted: ‘Housing is very, very important and we should be having a mature debate.’
In a further response to Mr Healey’s attack Mr Greenhalgh published a 7,000-word blog on the Conservative Party website to argue that Hammersmith & Fulham’s housing strategy was based on ‘empowering individuals and families to help themselves and take up the opportunities that are and will be developed’.
The blog refers to controversial redevelopment plans for two of the west London authority’s estates, Gibbs Green and West Kensington, which contain 950 homes. Mr Greenhalgh said critics had referred to the plans as a ‘radical demolition policy’.
‘We are considering redevelopment in order to offer our tenants and leaseholders better housing in any new development,’ he states in the blog.
We will build before we knock down and have issued a cast iron guarantee that they will all be rehoused locally.
‘Our policy is no reduction in the amount of social housing’.
Meanwhile Localis chief executive James Morris said accusations of stealth plans to raise rents were unfounded. ‘There’s no secret plan,’ he said.
John Moss, who co-authored a report on social housing reform with Mr Greenhalgh earlier this year, said the housing minister’s comments were based on quotes taken out of context in a desperate bid to smear Labour’s opponents.
He said: ‘The Labour Party are fighting like ferrets in a sack and they’re trying to throw anything that they can at us.’
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Readers' comments (1)
Dave Hollins | 12/10/2009 9:58 am
Greenhalgh calls John Healey 'some bloke who looks like an accountant' and then calls for a 'mature debate'. It's what we've come to expect from this man. He doesn't like it when his madcap policies come under scrutiny and tenants get told the truth about what he intends to do to them. Then he's all bluster. He cannot wriggle away from his policy that tenants should lose their security of tenure and be forced to pay market rents so landlords can make a profit. And that many homeless people should lose their rights. And that estates should be redeveloped against the tenants' wishes so he can build Lady Porter-style mixed communities (ie no poor people please). He has boasted many times before about how influential he and his council are, now he tries to play it down because his front bench are getting nervous about being associated with such a liability. John Healey has done really well to expose this man and his dangerous ideas.
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