A survey on plans to cut the number of households on Hackney Council’s Social Housing List by almost a half was limited and misleading, campaigners have claimed.
Hackney Council’s survey of the community on changes to the Social Housing List closed on Monday having been online since 14 December. The council is proposing a reduction in the number of households on the Social Housing List from over 13,000 to 7,000 by tightening the requirements to qualify for the list. The proposals also include limiting residents’ opportunities to turn down accommodation that has been otherwise deemed suitable.
The methods and wording of the consultation were criticised by Morning Lane People’s Space (MOPS), a local organisation.
“There are two issues with their consultation,” said Sarah Byrne, of MOPS. “First, it was only available online. And second, the survey asked extremely misleading questions like ‘do you think that the people in most need should be given housing first’.
“You would have to be really heartless to not think that. But it doesn’t say that by voting ‘yes, absolutely’, you actually say ‘I therefore want the housing list to be cut in half and everyone else to be kicked off’.”
Another concern raised by MOPS in their response to the survey is that by being exclusively online the consultation did not reach those most affected by the changes, including the homeless community and people without internet access.
Chair of Hackney’s Planning Committee councillor Vincent Stops said:
The digital divide is important – we must do what we can to fix that, but it is recognised by the council and lots of work is being done currently to address it
When approached for comment, Hackney Council sent a statement from Councillor Sade Etti, Cabinet Member for Homelessness, Housing Needs and Rough Sleeping, who said: “Our proposals aim to create a simpler, more transparent register, and we maintain that it is empathic to invest in meaningful advice and support for those unlikely to ever be successful in their bid for a social rent home – rather than keep thousands of families on a waiting list that they sadly stand no chance to benefit from.
“But we want to know what people think before making these changes, and we are undertaking a robust, fair and extensive twelve-week consultation on the proposals to change our allocations policy. This includes directly contacting every single household affected so that they can have their say by post, online or discuss with us over the phone.
“We will of course ensure all the feedback received informs our decision on how to proceed, including from the Morning Lane People’s Space group. But we would also encourage those concerned about these changes to join us in fighting the underlying issues that mean they are being proposed at all – starting with the government’s lack of investment in social housing over more than a decade and the arbitrary restrictions that limit our capacity to build more council homes.”
Severe lack of council homes in Hackney
There is an ongoing housing crisis in Hackney with 3,230 households living in temporary accommodation and over 13,000 people currently on the social housing list. As of 2021 the borough contains “1,392 long-term empty homes, 909 under-utilised second homes and over 3,500 whole home Airbnb lets” according to the Action on Empty Homes organisation.
According to MOPS, the main cause of the lack of affordable housing in Hackney is the definition of affordable housing: “The term includes not only council housing and social rent, but also private shared ownership housing which makes a great deal more money than council housing and social rent. So if a planning application requires say 30% ‘affordable housing’, which kind of housing do you think the developer would decide to build? Probably shared ownership or London living rent.”
MOPS is currently spearheading the effort to fight the planning proposal made by Hackney Walk for the highly debated Tesco site on 55 Morning Lane. A petition has been set up by the organisation to demand at least 50% council housing on the site. The organisation also ran a two month consultation reaching 1,400 people both online and in-person. Some 31% of the people surveyed by MOPS wished to see social and council housing built on the Tesco site, while 37% did not wish to see luxury housing on the site.
The developer, Hackney Walk, held drop-in consultations in 2019, reaching 138 people in comparison. The developer is planning to conduct further consultation to present to the council before they are awarded the final contract – which, controversially, includes a 999 year lease on the Tesco site land, which is owned by Hackney Council.
Lead image is “Hackney Housing Estates” by jezarnold licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
