"Q 37 Councillor Glanville, you said that you want to build, in your authority, affordable housing on land that you own. You emphasised the importance of exemptions. Are you promoting housing co-operatives as a way of delivering affordable housing? Perhaps the other witnesses could answer for their own authorities.
"Q 38 To be clear, for the land that you own on which you plan to build affordable housing going forward, the council is not proposing that those be held as housing co-operatives.
Phil Glanville: No.
Sir Steve Bullock: We also do not expect some of our existing housing co-operatives …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech
"Q 39 Could you clarify what you meant by “scale”?
Sir Steve Bullock: The housing co-ops tend to be very small. We are talking about building 15,000 additional units of housing in Lewisham over the next period. They would not be in a position to build anything like those kinds …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech
Martin Tett: I represent the LGA, rather than an individual borough, so it is probably better if I defer to Councillor Roe on this.
Philippa Roe: Similarly, we have big regeneration plans in Westminster. Everybody thinks that Westminster is extremely wealthy, but …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech
"Q 42 Given that there is a lot of concern about right to buy, I am puzzled why authorities that wanted to protect affordable housing would not use the housing co-operative route as an obvious exemption. It is certainly obvious from international evidence that it can be done at scale …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech
Phil Glanville: Returning to what Mayor Bullock said about scale, it is the scalability of the housing co-ops that exist in London that makes it challenging. We are looking at working with, say, the almshouse movement to build new, affordable homes that are …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech
"May I say how much we are enjoying my right hon. and learned Friend’s speech? His casual wafting around of various sections, whether they are the right ones or not, reminds me of one of those lovely days when he said that he had not bothered to read the Maastricht …..." Richard Bacon - View Speech