Labour Party Members Seek End of Affordable Rent

The Labour Party should abandon the coalition’s flagship ‘affordable rent’ policy if it regains power in 2015, according to the party’s grassroots members.  Party members will vote on a motion later this week that will call on the party to drop the scheme, which encourages social landlords to charge rents at 80 per cent of the market rate.  The motion states that delegates oppose ‘the government’s assault on affordable housing, with massive cuts to government funding, a doubling of rent in many areas through the so called “affordable rent model”, restrictions on security of tenure and the fire sale of social assets on the cheap through the extension of right to buy’.  It states specifically that a future Labour government should ‘reverse the coalition’s policy of linking new social rents to 80 per cent market levels’.  Read more on Inside Housing.