City tops affordable housing league

Cambridge City Council is top in the East of England in building affordable housing.

Figures released this week by the East of England Regional Assembly show that 43% of all new homes built in Cambridge are affordable housing. This compares to 23% in Cambridgeshire as a whole.

Cllr Catherine Smart, Executive City Councillor for Housing, commented on the figures:

"House prices in Cambridge are rising out of many people's reach. Many of those who work in the city can no longer afford to live here. This is why we have set high targets for affordable housing on all new developments,This is also why we are committed to building quality, sustainable and affordable housing near to good local facilities and public transport on the Southern Fringe of Cambridge and to the East of Cambridge.

"The whole Council is working towards providing good quality affordable housing in Cambridge. As well as setting affordable housing targets for private developments, we have sold £2 million of City Council land at a massive discount to housing associations and registered social landlordsin the last year. At the same time we are working with the Housing Corporation to ensure that local affordable housing schemes receive adequate central government funding, not always an easy task!

"I am very pleased that we have achieved 43% affordable housing on all new houses in the city but this work must continue if Cambridge is to remain a sustainable community for all who live and work here."

For a full breakdown of the housing statistics for the East of England visit the data on the EERA web site. The figures quoted are for the year 2005-06.

Pavement Progress

In the latest paper focus, which I hope everyone should have received by now, it says that I am to meet with officers from the County Council to discuss pavements.

This meeting has taken place and it is mixed news.

The bad news is that the County are unable to make repairs unless the pavement is considered dangerous. This is because funding for work to avoid problems in the first place has been slowly taken away by the Conservative run County Council.

The good news is that the officers on the ground are keen to fix the problems that they can. I have passed on the first set of reports, and hope to be able to report back some repairs soon. Please keep writing to me with details.

Stop Press: As I am writing this I have received an email telling me that repairs have been ordered to the pavement outside the Campkin Road shops. There is also a larger project to improve this area which should come before the next North Area Committee.