News

Housing charity Shelter has named Shepway as the 319th worst Council out of 323 in the Country in its affordable housing league table.

Only Ashford of the East Kent Councils made a reasonable showing being 122nd in the list. Dover was at 294, Thanet 309, and Canterbury 288.

Shelter describe the Housing League Table (at www.housingleaguetable.org.uk) as "an opportunity for you to see how your council is performing at enabling new affordable homes compared to other councils in your area, region and across England.

"It shows how the level of affordable homes being delivered compares to the number needed and uses this measure to produce a ranking for each council.

"The Housing League Table is also a valuable local housing data resource, providing councils and their local community with an insight into the housing situation in their area - a key source of information for people to get involved in local housing policies."

The results for Shepway are shown at http://tinyurl.com/ylg35q3

Shepway Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate Lynne Beaumont said: "Yet another league table puts Shepway in the relegation zone - one of the worst 5 performing Councils in the Country, and the 2nd worst in the South East. This happens time and again, and is just not good enough.

"We need to think creatively at Shepway how we can deliver affordable housing locally by looking at the examples set by some of the best performing Councils. Some of their ideas will work for us and some won't, but we should not accept such a poor result and should work to make affordable housing in Shepway much more widely available."

© Hawkinge Gazette and Channel Coast News 2010