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Johnstone's View 23rd May 2008

Defining ‘affordable housing’ is not easy. No political party would argue that everyone should not have the chance of a decent, affordable home, within a sustainable mixed community. Housing provision should meet the needs of the whole community, including those whose needs are not met by the traditional, privately owned housing market, and should include a good balance of housing types and tenures.

However, no-one has yet categorically defined the monetary value of ‘affordability’. Some would suggest that 20-30% of the local average wage might be about right, but that simply would not stack up in Aberdeenshire where those on or below average wages find it even more difficult to survive in our overheated housing market.

In the main, ‘Affordable Homes’ are provided at sub-market prices, and restricted to specified types of household.  The Scottish Government provides housing association grant to registered social landlords to provide additional affordable homes and the Housing Minister has recently announced £25m for councils although, as yet, it is unclear as to how this will be delivered.

Meanwhile, in the real world, responsible tenants are telling me about the growing imbalance between the rights and the responsibilities of the people who are becoming their neighbours. People believe that the current system of housing allocation is loaded towards those who are vulnerable and may have associated drug, alcohol and anti-social behaviour issues. Our communities are now becoming exasperated that we are quick to put tenants who may have behavioural problems into communities but slow to deal effectively with their problems and even slower when it comes to getting them out.

Local Authorities are legally obliged to house people in order of need and this can have devastating effects on communities. For example, a council not far from here was recently obliged to house a young woman with drug and alcohol issues in a block of four flats.  The other three tenants were elderly.  No sooner had the woman been housed then loud music was played day and night, with people coming and going at all hours.  The flat was raided by the police and later raided by her drug-abusing friends who were looking for drugs and money.  Amid considerable damage to the property, her neighbours were terrified.  The judicial system is often very reluctant to allow eviction, even in severe cases such as this.

What our communities want is a legal and policy framework that is skewed towards a better balance of responsibilities and rights.  Have we any chance of delivering balanced and sustainable communities under the current acts? I would argue that we do not, and we need legislation that can deliver it.

People feel the law protects bad behaviour and the system rewards it. They feel the council are slow to react and slower to act. Our communities are telling us loudly they want faster intervention and they want it to be much more decisive. Communities want respect for scarce tenancies, respect for neighbours and respect for communities.  When a tenant abuses their tenancy by turning their front garden into a scrap yard or continually dumping their rubbish in the communal areas, it is all but impossible to take action against them. Everyone today knows their rights but fewer take the responsibilities seriously. It’s time to give councils the leadership and tools to act swiftly against the very small minority that make everyone else’s life a misery.

The biggest reward individuals and communities are seeking is a peaceful life of co-existence. Our system is not delivering that for them and much worse, when poor behaviour is exhibited the system seems to reward it and fails to protect the victims. People want good behaviour rewarded and poor behaviour tackled. We should be rewarding those who pay their rent, who tackle their gardens and who are good neighbours.

‘Right to buy’ is a reward and we could tailor it to good behaviour as well as economics. We could also make a real difference by enabling councils to have some flexibility in where they choose to house tenants, especially where they know from past experience that they may have anti social behaviour issues. We must then seek to change the balance between Local Authorities and the legal system so that where a council seeks to evict, they have a reasonable expectation of success.

While investment and land availability remain major problems here in Aberdeenshire, we will only begin to solve our affordable housing problem when we all understand the need for a balanced approach towards Rights, Responsibilities, Respect & Reward.