Ban poor urbanites from living in Tewkesbury villages, say parish councillors
BANNING poor urbanites from villages would make Tewkesbury a better place, according to parish councillors in the borough.
A string of zany ideas has been sent to the borough council in response to its plans for interim housing strategy, which sets out what sort of homes need to be built in the district over the next two years.
They include introducing a rule dictating only people with a "genuine connection" should be allowed to live in council homes built within village boundaries.
Twyning Parish Council's response said: "The council would welcome a change to the criteria for occupation of 'affordable housing' within village environments.
"Many more villages may be prepared to ask for social housing to be built if they knew it would only be used for tenants with a genuine local connection and not for anyone in the borough."
Tewkesbury Borough Council's current five-year housing strategy runs out at the end of the month.
While the authority waits for other district councils and the Gloucestershire County Council to finalise a county-wide strategy, officers decided it needs to come up with an interim plan to plug the gap.
The new document, which will be voted on by councillors on Tuesday, retains the same priorities as its predecessor – namely providing more affordable housing, creating a balanced housing market and helping the homeless.
However, as part of the process, parish councils, the police and campaign groups were asked for their opinion on the issue.
As well as suggesting the ban on people from towns, Twying Parish Council also questioned the need to build homes in rural areas at all, citing flooding fears. Northway Parish Council recommended forcing shop owners with empty flats above their properties to hand them over to young people, with the borough council underwriting the insurance costs.
Winchcombe Town Council recommended scrapping the strategy altogether.
Its response said: "We believe the strategy should be held in stasis until Government policy becomes clear.
"They have already abolished the Regional Spatial Strategy and advised local authorities review elements of their local development frameworks in the light of the impending abolition of regional strategies."
The strategy will be discussed at a full council meeting in the Gloucester Road offices on Tuesday, starting at 6pm.
2 Comments
by an observer, severnside
Saturday, July 24 2010, 4:23PM
“Allowing tenants to purchase their own council houses proved very popular and seemed only right and proper at the time. The mistake was not allowing local authorities to use funds raised to build replacement homes and also the very large discounts granted longer-term tenants.
Not sure where "ban poor urbanites" headline comes from, although some 'urbanite' Severn Vale placements in our sleepy village have been curious to say the least. Two that spring to mind were the free-spirited single mother with a penchant for chemical substances and 'entertaining' and another single white mother who would inexplicably dress in normal (and occasionally quite revealing) clothing one day and Islamic attire the next! Both these young women have since moved on to pastures new and, while I certainly had no objection to their presence, I suspect they would have attracted much less curiosity and suspicion had they been living in a more cosmopolitan environment.
Sorry if this sounds rather snobbish but it sometimes feels like you can't break wind where we live without everyone knowing about it! It doesn't bother us though, but then again, we are not urbanites!”
by Maisemorian, Maisemore
Saturday, July 24 2010, 11:40AM
“The forms that people have to fill in to register for housing are clearly the problem in this respect. We were advised that around 175 people had registered a wish to rent a house in Maisemore. When we questioned who these people were, it turned out that only ONE, yet just ONE, had a legitimate reason to need a house here...
Now if most of the council houses here hadn't been sold off there'd be places for people needing houses, wouldn't there? It was a total mistake of the Conservatives ever to start selling off council houses.”