Labour Hails Their By-election Housing Record - Then The Truth Dropped

Right, so Camden Labour has built 650 council homes between 2010 and 2025. And in that same timeframe it demolished 500. Net result: 150 additional council homes in fifteen years of Labour rule there. Just ten a year then. Perhaps you think this is the norm for the overly built up London perhaps? Well for comparison, Southwark boasts over 3,000 council houses completed or under construction. In Hackney, 543 council houses for social rent have been built since 2011, and a further 972 council homes are in delivery. Now these figures might not be directly equivalent for one reason or another, but even so, it is still a pathetically small gain isn’t it? This is the housing situation at present. Yet that is the record on which former housing portfolio holder, now leader of Camden Council, Sagal Abdi-Wali is counting on to put her into Parliament. Is that a winning record worthy of advancement to you? Well, she’s not quite selling it that way of course. Her campaign has a rather grander version of events. A gigantic investment figure, thrown next to some new, shiny flats. Now, investing in council housing is obviously important and necessary, we all appreciate the housing crisis we are in. Existing homes also need repairs and maintenance, rewiring, new kitchens, better insulation, and so on and so forth. But improving existing homes isn't the same as increasing the number of council homes. You can’t simply slap a new front door on, wave your bills about and claim that you’ve given birth to another house. That’s not building.