Affordable homes for local people < Policies < Mebyon Kernow

Affordable homes for local people - Policies and Manifesto

Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall believes that local families have a fundamental right to good quality housing, both for purchase and rent, in their own communities and at a price that is truly affordable to people of Cornish wages.

But an out-of-control housing market means house prices in Cornwall have rocketed, leaving a clear mismatch between local wages and house prices. Private rented properties have become extremely expensive and getting a “council house” is but a distant dream for the many thousands in housing need.

The market was fractured by the Thatcherite sell-off of council houses in the 1980s. And it has been worsened by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government, which has massively slashed investment in affordable housing, replaced the social rent model with a new “affordable rent” model that sets rents at 80% of the inflated cost of private sector rents, allowed tax-breaks for buy-to-let “investors,” and reinvigorated the “right-to-buy” of council houses.

They have even raised the threshold to trigger affordable housing on smaller sites and undermined the ability of Councils to provide for the needs of their communities, while large house-builders have posted record profits.

Mebyon Kernow is campaigning for:

A planning system which focuses on providing local-needs affordable housing – not large amounts of open market housing to benefit speculative builders.
The development of council houses as a priority, alongside initiatives to increase the number of proper affordable homes through registered providers, charities, co-operatives and Community Land Trusts.
Legislation to halt and reverse the spread of second homes, as well as additional local taxation on those properties which are not permanently occupied.