Town council reveals plans for 500 new social homes after roundtable event
A town council has pledged to build 500 new social homes over the next five years after hosting an event for residents to share how the housing crisis is affecting them.
Oldham Council committed to the plans at a roundtable event earlier this month.
Arooj Shah, leader of the council, was joined by senior representatives from the town’s biggest social housing providers along with private landlords, letting agents, developers and charities.
The subject of the event was the housing crisis in Oldham and how partners can work together to tackle it.
Social and private landlords pledged to improve the quality of existing homes, letting and estate agents signed charters to raise housing standards and developers said they would work with the council to get building.
There are currently more than 7,500 families on the council’s housing register and thousands of applications waiting to be processed.
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There are also more than 500 families in temporary accommodation, including 500 children.
Tenant Nadia Masood told the roundtable: “I have a lot of health conditions and I’m living in a house covered in mould. I’ve had to rip up the carpets and I’m now living with concrete floors… It gave me a really serious asthma attack.
“I’ve been asking for help since last summer, I’ve done so much myself to try and sort it, but nothing ever happens.”
Yaasmin Mughees told the event about facing homelessness with three young children immediately after being granted right to stay in the UK.
She said: “I was new to the system and I was scared. I experienced things I wouldn’t expect any human to experience.
“I did get temporary accommodation for six months and it was good, but I know the quality of it was far better than where many other people are living. It really hurts to know so many people are living in these situations.”
Mr Shah described the situation as “tragic”. He added: “Nationally, there’s been a growing issue with housing for years and now places like Oldham are bearing the brunt of it.”
He criticised the “thousands of social homes” that have been sold under the Right to Buy with “no government policies in place to replace them”.
“I hear from local people every day whose lives are being ruined by this broken housing system,” he added. “This is why we have to do everything in our power to respond locally to this national crisis.”
Other issues discussed at the event included the high cost of renting and homeownership, the lack of government funding to invest in social homes, differences in the definition of truly “affordable” homes, and a reduction in the supply of social and affordable housing.
According to the latest government data, there were nearly three times more social homes sold or demolished last year (more than 27,000) than were built (9,561).
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