Yahoo Finance I took Gavin Barwell's seat in Croydon. Here's how I intend to keep it
As a Labour candidate in a marginal outer-London seat at this election, housing was always going to be an important element of my campaign.
With over 350,000 residents, Croydon is London’s most populated borough, and the housing crisis is very real here. We have 4,500 households on the waiting list for council homes and a further 10,000 households were forced into temporary accommodation last year.
In Croydon, voters didn’t just have an opportunity to stand up against a government who had let them down on housing – their former MP Gavin Barwell was also the country’s housing minister.
With prices over ten times average earnings, buying a home is a pipe-dream for most people in Croydon. Rents have skyrocketed, leaving over half of private renters reliant on housing benefit. Almost 1,000 families with children were made homeless last year alone as a result of these unaffordable rents, leading to evictions.
Despite having the housing minister as their MP in Croydon, things were not improving on housing for residents in my constituency. On even the simplest things like empty homes, where the housing minister could have brought in extra powers to allow the council to intervene, nothing was done. We’ve seen a 400% rise in homes lying empty in Croydon since 2013.
On the doorstep I felt the greatest frustration amongst young people and working families, stuck paying extortionate rents or living with parents, fed up of being told this was the way things had to be. Labour offered these groups a clear alternative with policies which reflected the scale of the challenge we face.
Take private renting. Gavin Barwell acknowledged that private renters have problems and that their homes are unaffordable, but he was lacking on policy detail. For example, suggested measures to improve tenant security in new Build to Rent properties would have helped new renters, but offered nothing to the tens of thousands currently renting in Croydon Central.
By contrast, Labour’s manifesto promised all renters the right to a three-year tenancy, with limits on how much landlords could increase rents. We are committed to new consumer rights for renters to make sure no one has to put up with unsafe electrics, damp or vermin, with hefty fines for landlords who don’t comply. We have a whole suite of policies aimed at making renting cheaper, fairer, safer and more secure. We may not be in government, but Labour MPs will work hard to fight for these as a strengthened opposition.
Fixing the housing crisis is also about building more homes of every tenure by unlocking the capacity of developers big and small, private and public.
We desperately need more homes, in Croydon and across the country, but they must be the right kinds of homes. That means affordable to local people, built to a high standard in keeping with the surrounding area, and supported by schools, parks, roads and all the other infrastructure that makes houses into communities.
And this isn’t just about building new homes, I will also be fighting for greater tenancy rights. The devastating fire in Grenfell Tower demonstrated how important it is to maintain the highest possible standards of safety and maintenance, whether you own your home, rent privately or rent a social home. That includes asking why successive housing ministers, including my predecessor in Croydon Central, failed for years to carry out a review of fire safety in tower blocks.
I am extremely proud that Croydon was the first borough since the Grenfell tragedy to confirm it will retrofit 25 tower blocks with sprinkler systems. We now need the government to make sure the same happens across the country.
Housing policy in this country must improve. Voters know it. Politicians know it. We have seen the lessons learnt from politicians who have not taken this seriously enough. As I enter Parliament, these are challenges which both I and my party are ready to face.
Sarah Jones is the newly-elected Labour MP for Croydon Central.
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