Heartless Tory council strikes again

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Remember Tory Wandsworth council? A few weeks ago we told you about their outrageous plans to charge children to play at a council play area.

Their hard-right leader Eddie Lister has left the council to act as Boris Johnson’s right hand man, but it seems like a change of leadership hasn’t changed anything for this heartless Tory council.

It has been revealed today that the new Tory council leader Ravi Govindia plans to make it harder for the unemployed and homeless to obtain social housing in the borough, preferring to prioritise “working families”.

While no-one would deny that times are hard, even for those in work (with 59% of those in poverty being in households with at least one parent in work). However the most vulnerable – those in severe poverty who need the most assistance – are those out of work.

Wandsworth’s plans to penalise those who have fallen on hard times is typical of their uncaring attitude. So much for “The Brighter Borough”.

Update: Responding to Cllr Govindia’s plans for reforming housing in Wandsworth, Labour housing spokesperson, Cllr Mark Thomas said:

“This plan threatens to condemn Wandsworth’s homeless to a revolving door of insecure, unaffordable housing.”

“Wandsworth undoubtedly faces a housing crisis but cutting away the safety net from beneath the feet of the growing number of residents who face the nightmare of losing their home is no way to deal with it. Instead, the council should be putting right years of failure to provide for residents’ housing needs, by making its surplus land available to housing associations at low prices so that they can build new homes for affordable rent.”

“The council should also change its rules for allocating housing by giving applicants extra points for each year they have waited. This would make it easier for local people to work their way up the queue, but would avoid penalising those who are out of work through no fault of their own.”