CENTREPOINT MODULAR HOUSES COULD BE THE ANSWER

`Job and home` plan 

for Lakes  clearances

The Sunday Times has devoted three separate articles  to what it called "the countryside housing crisis”At the same time the national housing charity Centrepoint is  pushing forward  with a plan  to tackle a related housing  crisis from a different angle..

The Sunday Times is concerned that in places like the Lake District, local people and key workers are being priced out of the market by the national demand for second home bolt holes,what MP Tim Farron(Westmorlnd and Lonsdale),pictured, calls “the Lakeland Clearances”.

 

  Centrepoint is concerned about young people who are ready to move on but cannot afford to do so.

The Sunday Times says many MPs are pushing for restrictions  on second home owners and Mr Farron has launched a petition for a change in the planning law. “We can no longer ignore the countryside housing crisis,” says the newspaper.

Centrepoint has a slogan:”A job and a home for homeless young people”. The charity has launched the biggest capital investment plan in it 50-year history: to deliver 300 new modular homes, each costing £50,000, to help young people into affordable accommodation, training and employment. No tenant will pay more than a third of his income in rent.

The second home problem has plagued the Lake District for well over half a century despite the best best efforts of local authorities and others. The problem seems to get worse by the day…  “ and if we don`t step in we will see entire populations move out,” says Mr Farron.”

 It seems that some new thinking is badly needed about the problem.Centrepoints`s “A  Job and a  Home” might well be that new thinking.

The scheme seems not expensive.It  could easily be adapted for places in Cumbria to give local young people the break they need to live and work in the place where they were born.

Hopefully,”A Job and a Home” could put an end to the clearances.

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

 

 

 

GIGANTIC KILLING OFF AND SHUFFLING

 

 Councils

beat mayors

every time 

 Boris Johnson last week pledged to create directly elected mayors for each individual county. How will this will apply to Cumbria and which councils will survive in the coming local government re-organisation.?

 

For an answer, perhaps it is useful to reflect on Prime Minister Edward Heath`s disastrous local government re-organisation of 1974 which started it all by igniting many big- is- best changes that still have echoes today.

These changes included killing off the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland and killing off hundreds of small town and rural councils.

These included two Penrith councils, two Carlisle councils and councils in Alston, North Westmorland, Keswick and South Westmorland.

The local government re-organisation was indeed a gigantic killing off and shuffling around, concentrating more and more power in Westminster aimed primarily to prepare Britain for the coming great European adventure which until recently dominated all our lives.

As I recall, many of the newly-created district councils were initially not given names but instead were given European numbers to link in with similar numbers and councils across Europe. Happily that never happened.

Today, 40 odd years later, Mr Johnson is trying hard to turn the clock back and to return some of that power to local communities through directly elected mayors based in major towns and cities.

Sadly, transparency and closeness to communities achieved by the hundreds of now abolished small town councils is no longer there.

Elected mayors, despite all Boris Johnson`s spin they are now attracting will never achieve the transparency and closeness of that sort.

PICTURED: London Mayor Sadiq Khan

 

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

 

WANTED: 68 CHEFS FOR THE LAKES

Local people vanish and tourists go hungry

Newspaper columnist Ross Brewster, the Sunday Times and MP Tim Farron last weekend painted grim pictures of the Lake District as it is now, after Brexit and Covid have done their worst.

Ross Brewster is nostalgic for Lakeland village fetes, for May Days, and carnivals of fifty years ago which all, sadly, have vanished from the calendar because the local people who organised them have vanished too. 

On a similar theme, the Sunday Times devoted nearly half a page to details of another vanished Lakes group: the workers who staffed the many restaurants and cafes.

“Wanted 68 chefs for the Lakes . The tourists are going hungry” said the Sunday Times headline.

Local MP Tim Farron (Westmorland and North Lonsdale) is concerned about both vanished groups.

He talks darkly about about Lakeland Clearance. Surely not clearances as devastating as the the Highland Clearances of two hundred years ago?

Possibly he has table clearances in mind- the sort of cups-and- saucers` clearances performed by waiters a hundred times a day.

Mr Farron is campaigning for a change in the planning laws to keep the local people in place locally.

And for hungry tourists, he wants a post Brexit relaxation of visa rules to allow EU citizens to return to Britain and fill the employment gaps.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of the these employment gaps.

Clearances of whatever kind have triumphed.

Restaurants are no more.

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

MARKET JOINS FORCES WITH STREET COBBLES` REPAIRS

 The local touch wins praise for tiny Alston

       

The tiny Cumbria  town of Alston with a population of about 1,100, has put has put its big city neighbour Carlisle to shame in organising an outdoor market. Many people agree that David won by a mile in this David versus Golliath contest.

Alston won because it relied on the people of the town. Carlisle, about 100 times the size with a population of 108,000 relied on outsiders and lots  of government cash.

 The market was a first for Alston with more  markets promised in the next few  months  as the town combines its entertaining street markets with town improvement in an unique way through re-instatement of its street cobbles.

The similar first weekend market 28 miles away in Carlisle had lots of food stalls , drinks` stalls, garden stalls and continuous highly organsed mass entertainment. It was called the Hawker Festival.

The city council organised the festival and backed it. And the government backed it with thousands of pounds from its national Welcome Back Fund.

With all that cash backing, how could  the Hawker Festival be anything but a success?

 It attracted hundreds of people and the stallholders seemed to make thousands of pounds .

But sadly, it also attacted a lot of criticism.

Critics said  the  stallholders came from miles away and there  wasn`t a local stallholder  in sight. Publicans said they had been deserted by their customers who had preferred  to drink at the Hawker Festival.

And critical politicians pointed out that all the thousands of pounds spent at the market had not stayed in Carlisle to benefit the city but had been moved away by the stall holders.

 Could any of the Carlisle critcisms be made about Alston`s street market?.The Alston stallholders were local, the Alston pubs boomed and Alston money stayed in  Alston.

The town claims to be the highest market town in England.

The quality of  Alston markets is  high too.

On this showing, that quality is also the highest in England

 PICTURED: ALSTON`S COBBLED MAIN STREET WITH, RIGHT. OLD-STYLE COVERED MARKET

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

COUNCILLOR SPOTLIGHTS "SAD DAY" FOR OUR CITY

 

`Dom ` style blast

at council house`sell-off

 

 

 Councillor Robert Betton (pictured) is becoming something of a local Dominic Cummings in his many wide-ranging  criticisms  of Carlisle City Council. His latest attack was on a decision twenty years ago to hand over the city`s entire stock of 8,000 council houses.

He called the decision a “sad day” in the history of the city.

This  is not the first occasion he has attacked both the handover and  Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association which bought the houses. He has made these attacks many times previously.

His attack was concerned particularly about the lack of one bedroom homes in plans for a new massive housing estate,  an omission he feels is still an unsolved problem for the area.

·       He said: “I’ve said it at every meeting: it was a sad day when all of the city’s housing stock was handed over from the council.

·       “From then on it just appears that providing social housing hasn’t been made a priority.

·       “We have a situation now, where houses are being built but a lot of these homes are out of financial reach for those who would like to get on the property ladder."

·       He added: “My main concern is that there is a lack of one bedroom homes being built as part of the development.

·       “We’re really missing proper social housing in the area still. It’s a shame that we still can’t offer enough single people that option.”

Councilors were discussing a 725-home estate planned for the southern edge of Morton. In total, the estate will consist of 199 two bedroom dwellings, 352 three bedroom dwellings and 174 four bedroom dwellings.

 Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

 

CUTS ARE BECOMING THE NORM

`Homeless 

get no help from planners`

Cuts to affordable home numbers are becoming the norm, says a Cumbria local newspaper correspondent, highlighting the big reduction in the construction of these homes by a leading county building company, Story Homes.

Contributors to the letters column of the Penrith-based Cumberland and Westmorland Herald newspaper are continuing to draw attention to the shortage of these homes and the policy of local builders to make reductions to plans for more  of the homes.

In this week`s issue of the newspaper, Maggie Clowes of Appleby attacks Eden District Council`s planning committee for giving the go ahead for these reductions.

She writes:“The committee seemed more concerned to protect developers` profiles than to ensure sufficient affordable housing for its own taxpayers.

“Perhaps the scrutiny committee should consider how honest it is to pay lip service to policy on affordable housing which in practice is regularly ignored.”

“It would be interesting to know just how many developments have actually been built with the prescibed 30 percent affordable housing”

 

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227