The Tories' REAL Housing Plan

Sadly my invite to the Tory Party conference got lost in the post but I like to feel I'm there in spirit if not in body.

I've was asked to tweet in questions to my good friend Daniel Hannan and I've been been having fun tweeting on the #cpc09.

But today I thought I'd find out more about the Tories housing policy so I invited some residents from the West Kensington Estate in Hammersmith and Fulham to watch the speech by Tory Housing Minister Grant Shapps.

This is the same estate that the Tory council is allegedly threatening to bulldoze to make space for luxury appartments and conference centres. West Kensington is one of several estates making up 3,500 decent homes that Hammersmith and Fulham intend to knock down to get the right sort of people in!

As neighbouring MP Andy Slaughter points out:

"The leaseholders and freeholders will get a price, which will not enable them to buy equivalent accommodation in the area, and they will have to move considerably further out. The tenants have an uncertain future. At least a third fewer units of housing will replace existing affordable housing. The replacement affordable housing will be registered social landlord housing: typically, it will be half the size, more expensive to run, and the rents will be 50 per cent. more.

"For many tenants, the only option will be to move out of the borough—Barking, Dagenham and Thamesmead have been mentioned as destinations for them. Many are elderly people, who have lived on the estates since the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when they were built."

You can read more about it here and here.

You could say this is a rogue council. But what amazed me is that Grant Shapps, London Tory Council Leaders and the Boris Johnson's Deputy Mayors, attended a secret meeting to discuss social housing under the Tories. Also attending that meeting was Stephan Greenhalgh, the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham who openly advocates the abolition of Social Housing.

You can look at the full attendee list here.

Greenhalgh said in a pamphlet for the think tank Localis we need to be "tearing down the Berin Wall of varying tenure and rent levels that operates between the private rented and social rented sectors" and advocates "one form of tenancy, modelled on Assured Shorthold Tenancy which any landlord could offer.''

Or in other words, 8 million people - 4 million families - would have the security of their home reduced to a two month period.

Labour managed to obtain minutes of this secret Tory housing summit meeting under the Freedom of Information act from Hammersmith and Fulham council.  But guess what? The Tories have redacted the document so you can't see who said what!

Look at the document. When you read the comments, I'm not surprised they blacked the names out!

They say estates are ''barracks for the poor," "hard to get rid of," "what is a poor person," "how brave will politicians be on rent control and tenue" and they need to "knock it down and start again."

And most telling of all "The sacred cows need to be shot."

This is the REAL Tory Housing Plan.

Grant Shapps said he wanted to turn Britain into a "nation of homebuilders." He actually meant a nation of home movers - moving people out of their communities and out of Tory constituencies.

Looks like the spirit of Dame Shirley Porter still lives on in the Tory Party.

Here's what Charlie and Ellie from West Kensington think of the Conservatives' plans.