‘Disgraceful’ York Central plans show contempt for residents – MP

Rachael Maskell has ripped into the York Central plans in a Parliamentary speech.

She told the Commons that it was a disgraceful missed opportunity to provide affordable housing for residents.

The Labour MP for York Central said people were living in housing poverty, in damp over-crowded, housing – often rented at extortionate rates.

And she said that a developer’s hunger to make ‘obscene’ profits were being allowed to trump the desperate housing needs of local residents.

‘Contempt for residents’

Housing minister Jake Berry has agreed to meet Ms Maskell after she raised her concerns.

She said, despite the enormous level of public sector investment, only 20% of the new homes will be affordable, and condemned the council for showing ‘contempt’ for residents’ housing needs.

Rachael Maskell MP said:

• York Central provides an incredible opportunity to tackle serious inequality in York, by creating good quality jobs and desperately needed homes to take people out of housing poverty and help them achieve their basic human rights.

  Instead City of York Council have handed over £35m of our money and all key development decisions to the development partners who’s only motivation is to make profit from the land, not to deliver housing for local people.
  

She told MPs that most of the new homes at York Central are set to be one and two bedroom flats, of which the bare minimum will be affordable.

“At a time when land is so scarce in York it is disgraceful that the Council are allowing so much of this land to be used for the development of 2,000 luxury flats rather than the type of homes we know that local people urgently need.”

Ms Maskell said:

• York calls itself a Human Rights city, and yet again City of York Council has failed to understand that this starts with addressing housing poverty.