Margaret Mullane MP Challenges Havering’s Decades-Long Housing Failures and Calls Out the Excuses.
Dagenham and Rainham MP, Margaret Mullane, writes “Over the last few weeks I saw politicians writing about ‘Havering’s Green Belt mustn’t pay the price for housing failure’. That really is rich coming from politicians of a political party (and ones formerly of that party) that was running the country for many years and that ran Havering Council for several decades.
Since being elected as MP for Dagenham and Rainham I constantly hear from desperate local people about housing failures directly impacting their lives brought about the policies and inactions of those very politicians who are now piping up.
Just look at the growing housing waiting lists, the number of homeless local families in temporary accommodation, the thousands of households in the borough struggling to pay exorbitant rents to private landlords and the many young people who have given up the hope of getting their first foot on the housing ladder. These are the desperate pleas I hear in my casework many times every week.
My view is that we need to build homes that are truly affordable for local people in the right places, places that people want to live in and put down their roots for their families to thrive. As the draft London Plan makes clear the priority should be for housing development on so called ‘brown field’ sites.
The irony is that in Havering we have an opportunity to build almost another 5,000 homes along the A1306 from the Borough boundary with Barking and Dagenham through to Dovers Corner in Rainham. I say irony, because it was the last Tory Government that blocked the Beam Park station and that action scuppered the new homes plans. I am working to undo that damaging decision and to honour the promises made to people who bought homes at Beam Park and to unlock those needed new homes and business investment that will generate jobs for our area.
My prescription for good housing development is to focus on brown field land and also make sure that alongside the new homes there must be the infrastructure to support the new community – the schools, health services, policing and public transport.
In all of the discussion about green belt land it is worth pointing out that the toxic former landfill site at Arnolds Field Launders Lane is designated as green belt! Not all so called green belt is any shade of green. The government has introduced the concept of ‘grey belt’ that is land that has no agricultural nor public amenity value that should be considered for development. Though to be clear, Arnolds Field could never be considered for housing development due to its toxicity.
So when I see talk of ‘housing failure’ by the very architects of that failure, forgive me when I feel angry. I would suggest to them that they should respond to the draft London Plan consultation to say that a station at Beam Park will unlock 5,000 homes to help meet the target for Havering.”
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