Lincoln fights to defend council housing

ACROSS THE country local councils are getting rid of their council housing through private finance initiatives (PFI), arms length management schemes and sell-offs to private companies and housing associations.

Marc Glasscoe, Lincoln

Lincoln Socialist Party members have been campaigning to retain housing stock under the local council's control. But simply fighting for the council to keep control is not enough. The government can sit back and starve the council of funds to maintain and improve its stock until tenants beg to be privatised.

We need to organise and fight for proper funding for our homes, for high quality services and a genuinely accountable landlord. We must also fight for this money to come from direct government funding and not be added to tenants' rents or forced onto tenants and others through council tax hikes.

On 8 February the Defend Council Housing group are organising a mass rally and lobby of Parliament. We are organising a delegation so we can put forward our case for decent, affordable social housing. This is strongly supported by tenants, trade unionists and even local councillors, fed up with the government attacking what they believe in.

The days of a Labour government even pretending to pay attention to ordinary working-class people have long gone. We need to build a new mass workers' party, with a genuine fighting socialist programme for social housing, based on working-class people's needs and not big business' rapacious profits.

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In The Socialist 26 January 2006:

Striking to save jobs & services