Conservative run local authorities are planning to build on average less than a fifth of the social homes set for Labour councils, a survey has found.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests sent by the Labour party to 324 town halls have found that while the average Conservative council will have constructed 20 social homes by 2015, a Liberal Democrat authority will have more than doubled that number by the end of the parliament while an average Labour authority will have constructed 100 in that time.
The figures suggest that in Welwyn Hatfield, the constituency of housing minister Grant Shapps, a single social home will be constructed each year between now and 2015.
Over the next three years, 25 responding London boroughs outlined that they would construct a combined 4,000 social homes.
Birmingham and Leeds both stated that they both held plans to build over 300 social homes by 2015, while the similarly Labour run Islington revealed that it intended to construct 708 of these properties.
A spokesperson for Welwyn Hatfield BC said: ‘As the FOI only applied to ‘social rent’ and also only to those properties that have received all necessary approvals, including therefore planning permission, it is not surprising that this is a low figure. Planning approval is often given fairly late on in any development process, so there will be many schemes that are likely to be delivered within the next three years which won’t yet have all necessary approvals.’
The authority has stated that it plans to deliver 18 social rented units on a recently tendered council owned site and affirmed that the Government had remained focussed on funding the delivery of affordable rent properties rather than those classified as social rent.
Hilary Benn, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, said: ‘Ministers keep telling us we have a housing crisis but their Tory colleagues are simply failing to build the homes that people need at a rent they can afford. It's time for Eric Pickles to get tough with his Tory town hall colleagues and tell them to get building.’
