Housing- The facts driving Wednesfield's housing demands.

Like many of my Councillor colleagues across the City. When we hold our surgeries, the top request from constituents is for suitable housing.

In Wolverhampton the City through its Wolverhampton Homes Agency manages – 21,022 homes. This is not enough homes to provide the social housing that there is a demand for in Wolverhampton.

Here in Wednesfield North there are just – 1,277 Council homes left in Council ownership. The vast majority of these dwellings will be in resident’s tenancy that does not wish to move and have a long term vision as staying in their community. So are not vacant or have any chance of becoming vacant in the short term. Plus the stock continues to drop through sales under the ‘Right to buy‘ legislation.

I have recently asked officials how many requests has WH received since the turn of the year regarding the need by families to transfer and down size across the City, through the advent of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government ‘bedroom tax’.

The answer coming back to me is that at 1/5/13 – there are 2,631 (20.9%) tenants who are registered for a transfer. - 628 joined HITC during 1/1/13 to 1/5/13. - 350 tenants are in larger homes and eligible for a smaller one.
I also asked how many requests had WH received from Wednesfield North residents
to down size and transfer in this same period. The answer is that 59 tenants with a Wednesfield or Ashmore Park address joined during the same period, of which 30 tenants are in larger homes and eligible for a smaller one.

So from this picture you can see that there is very little chance for the City Council to juggle their housing stock, and come up with enough suitable homes to keep everyone happy, all at once.

Almost 21% of WH tenants want to transfer from their current homes and 12,588 people on the Housing List are pressing for homes of their own.

There are 350 larger homes across the city where tenants are eligible to downsize. Here in Wednesfield we have 59 tenants of which 30 are in homes that are too large for them and are eligible for a smaller one.

I have today checked my records and can inform readers that I have ten constituents this month, who are in desperate need of re- housing, and I am continuing to assist. That since May 2012- I have assisted in eight constituents finding more suitable housing for them and their families. The good news on the horizon is that the Labour Group on the City Council has agreed to spend £5m building new Social Housing in the City. This is the first new Council Homes in decades!
The economy both here in the City and the UK, is not improving. There are outstanding County Court judgements ( November 2012) against owners of homes, and the private rented sector with a value exceeding £80million. Many of these people will lose their homes and will look to the City to rehouse them. The future of housing in this City is of critical importance and the Government must do more to provide much needed affordable new homes- and quickly!