Tower Hamlets: housing for people, not for profit!

The number of empty homes in Britain, at a time of acute housing need, graphically exposes the failures of New Labour housing policy.

The problem of empty homes has been around for years and successive administrations have failed to take the issue seriously and introduce measures that would deter property speculators.  As in other policy areas, New Labour is besotted with the market and the private sector, believing it has mystical powers to solve society's ills.  Thousands of empty homes standing empty, while thousands are  homeless, demonstrates that their free market ideology is wrong.  It is both immoral and ineffecitve.

George Galloway said, "These figures are another shameful indicment of New Labour. Forty years after Ken Loace's "Cathy Come Home", we are no nearer to a housing policy that puts people before profit. Since he came to power, Blair has boasted of his business-friendly approach, but while property spivs sip champagne this Christmas, thousands of people will endure the misery of homelessness.'

Nowhere is the gap between the housing haves and have nots more stark than in Tower Hamlets. The property driven boom has seen house prices soar way beyond the wildest dreams of most local people. Inevitably, the financial institutions have tried to take advantage, buying up whole blocks of flats not for people to live in, but in the hope that they can turn a profit. Ten years ago there were about 3,000 empty private sector homes in Tower Hamlets - that figure has barely changed. Mirroring central government, the Council has failed to take any serious action to address the problem.

RESPECT calls for long overdue action to prevent this obscenity. Punitive council tax rates must be introduced for owners of homes that stand empty. Local councils must adopt robust strategies for dealing with empty homes, including the use of compuslory purchase powers.