St.Albans City and District Council Liberal Democrats Group started the New Year where they left off in 2012 when they won a second vote within less than two months last night against the ruling Conservatives. This decision should benefit all new Council tenants if the Cabinet accepts the recommendations from this Special Council meeting.
Having inflicted one defeat on the Tories over the draft Strategic Local Plan and the protection of the Green Belt at the previous meeting, they suffered a second yesterday when the Lib Dems and Labour put forward a joint motion on the Tenancy Strategy which they won with the support of the Independents. It increasingly seems that the Tories are out of touch and can no long guarantee getting any of their major policies through Council without the support of at least one other opposition Group.
Commenting after the meeting Cllr. Rob Prowse said,
“This new form of tenure would no longer provide lifetime security as it always has done but would be replaced by a fixed term ‘flexible’ tenancy for up to a maximum of five years. At the end of this period there would be an automatic review and if the tenant did not meet the Council’s housing criteria, including a new joint income threshold, they would have to leave their home and find alternative accommodation either renting or buying in the private sector locally or elsewhere if they could.”
“As I said in my contribution to the debate I am particularly concerned that the Conservatives had not thought through the unintended consequence of this proposed Strategy for example those with special needs and families with children. It could, for example, cause quite unnecessary stress and anxiety for couples with children at critical stages of their education if family incomes rose to anywhere near the set threshold limits and they had to find alternative accommodation locally.”
The average house price is now £371,131 in St Albans (Halifax survey) and monthly private sector rents are also at a very high level, this policy could easily lead to increased homelessness in St .Albans. It could result in a new group of unscrupulous private landlords locally who seek to profiteer out of this situation and to an increase in substandard, overcrowded and overpriced private accommodation.
The Conservative cabinet must now look again at the tenancy strategy. Rob went on to say,
“This decision is good news for all new Council tenants who should now enjoy greater security of tenure than they would have done even when a revised Strategy has been considered more fully and introduced later this year. That is as long as the Cabinet now accepts Council’s democratic recommendations. If it does not I can assure our political opponents that Liberal Democrats will have no option but to carry on fighting their cause!”