Shelter was wrong in its comparison
Rob Cogings of Derbyshire Dales Council was absolutely right to highlight the flaws in his letter on Shelter’s Housing League Table (Inside Housing, 16 April).
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Increasing the supply of affordable housing is a key priority for us here in Islington but Shelter’s league table doesn’t help anyone by completely failing to take into account the unique housing and economic pressures in London, including high density, limited land supply and the high costs of development.
Despite the constraints we face as the second smallest and one of the most densely populated boroughs in London, I believe we have an excellent track record of delivering housing growth above and beyond our housing targets. Indeed, Shelter’s own figures show we deliver an average of 573 affordable homes each year, whereas its top two London boroughs deliver just 556 combined. Yet they’re ranked fifth and sixth nationally whereas Islington is ranked 216th. It’s laughable and makes a mockery of all our hard work.
Crude national comparisons simply aren’t meaningful and even at a more local level, benchmarking can be problematic as there is no level playing field. Despite the economic downturn, 450 new affordable homes are due to be completed in Islington in 2009/10 alone.
We’ve secured £73 million in funding commitments from the Homes and Communities Agency to deliver 1,200 more affordable homes through social landlords in the 2008/2011 national affordable housing programme and we’re leading the way in building more council houses - with 14 finished last year and 56 more due for completion by April 2011.
We’ve put in place a number of successful initiatives including small extensions and incentives for under-occupiers to help severely overcrowded families and expect to exceed our 2008/2011 local area agreements target to assist 415 severely overcrowded households. Islington is also proud of having the best record in London for tackling homelessness among families and rough sleepers.
I share Shelter’s desire to see affordable housing become a long-term priority across the country. But attempting to achieve this by using flawed information doesn’t give councils the credit we deserve.
Terry Stacy JP, Liberal Democrat councillor and former leader of Islington Council