When I was the Cabinet Member for Homes and Culture, my portfolio included everything from homelessness, council and social housing, to the private rented sector in Southampton.
Homes are more than bricks and mortar. Homes are about the people that live in them, their quality of life, and the sense of community and stability that high quality housing creates. Whether you rent or own, all homes need to be safe, secure, and affordable to live in.
For too long housing has been treated as a commodity, rather than a human right intrinsically linked to better life outcomes, impacting your health, employment and education. Therefore, to truly improve people’s lives, we must fix the current housing crisis which local authorities are at the front line of.
As a member of Labour’s National Housing Group, I promoted the good work that we were doing in Southampton, and still act to influence national policy to help bring about the change we need within the sector.
Initiatives and projects
The initiatives I worked on in my cabinet role, included:
- Tackling fuel poverty and launching the Southampton Healthy Homes programme, which works to identify and address energy efficiency in homes that are expensive to heat.
- Building much needed quality council homes in Southampton. Began delivering on Labour’s commitment of 1000 new council homes by 2025, given to people based on need, including a focus on more supported and extra care homes to help with a growing adult social care demand. This project was stopped by the incoming Conservative council. However, if Labour were to take back control of the council, council home building will remain a top priority.
- Reducing homelessness by using modern methods of construction to build quality temporary accommodation, while working on preventative measures so local families don’t risk becoming homeless.
- Decent neighbourhood programmes that improve and enrich communities, giving local people an opportunity to co-design and have a stake in the future of their area.
- Bringing derelict buildings within our neighbourhoods back into community use.
- Introducing licensing schemes within the private rented sector to ensure all tenants are living in homes that are safe and secure, to stop tenants being victims of rogue landlords.