No-one should be without a home; the blight of homelessness and rough sleeping should surely now belong to a past age. Decent and affordable housing should be an entitlement for everyone and local authorities have a key responsibility to ensure this is indeed the reality. Those houses must be energy efficient so keeping warm is affordable.
Houses are more than roofs over people’s head; they are homes and part of local communities. We see the community as both the focus and the main resource for our energies. We believe that a key role for local government is facilitating the development of strong and more self-supporting local communities.
As your local Green Party, we will:
- Seek to ensure a mix of housing with much more emphasis on providing high energy efficient housing, ideally with a net-zero ecological footprint (sometimes known as ‘passivhaus’ standard).
- Encourage and support ‘community-led housing’ projects and initiatives.
- Support the provision of more social housing and ensure private rentals offer a fair deal to both landlords and tenants.
- Seek to ensure that new homes are built close to shops and services and where neighbour contact and social support are readily available.
- Promote the development of ‘zero carbon’ homes that are more affordable to run, along with increasing the energy efficiency of existing housing stock and grant support towards this.
- Strengthen district council commitments in relation to the provision of support within local communities, particularly for more isolated and vulnerable residents.
- Further develop the district council’s work with local schools in promoting good citizenship and democratic engagement.