On the face of it, the figures for new homes look very impressive with Pendle exceeding the Government statutory Housing Delivery Test with a score of 135% and in Burnley with a score of 478% over a two-year period.

It would be interesting to know how many of these new homes are affordable to buy, how many are social housing to rent, and how many are built on Greenfield and on Brownfield sites.

I suspect the vast majority are to buy and are built on Greenfield locations.

If this is the case, then we still have a massive housing crisis with unmet housing needs.

The majority Pendle and Burnley households have a below average income and would not be able to afford to buy a new out town new home and a car.

So, how do we resolve this dilemma?

it will be impossible to build enough Council houses to meet the growing demand of 1.3 million people on councils’ housing waiting lists if the Right to Buy Scheme is not abolished.

This housing crisis has steadily increased ever since the scheme was introduced in 1980 with more than 2 million homes sold off at well below market price.

The crisis has been compounded by the fact Councils were not allowed to keep a portion of Right to Buy receipts to partially fund some replacement homes until 2012 but not enough to replace all that were sold.

We now know that not only are there 1.2 million fewer social homes since 1980 but also there is the scandal that 40% of those sold off are now owned by private landlords, who can charge exorbitant rents.

Meanwhile, there are 1.5 million residential properties standing empty or abandoned across the UK, not counting empty premises, in deprived areas, which could be renovated or converted for social housing.

The UK government has earmarked £39 billion for its Social and Affordable Homes Programme (2026 – 2036) to build 300,000 new affordable homes.

Why doesn’t the Government use most of this money to invest in renovating or converting many such properties in the deprived town centres like in Pendle and Burnley?

Such a change in policy would accomplish five things:

· Cut down the waste of existing resources and pollution;

· Meet the need of the majority who cannot afford to buy a new home;

· Foster the social and economic regeneration of deprived areas;

· Reduce the need to build on Greenfields, which results in Biodiversity Loss;

· Achieve the Government target for 1.5 million homes by 2030.

Dave Penney

Highfield, Keighley Road, Colne