Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending my first meeting of the Planning Applications Committee – and very droll and boring it was too. However, one gem dropped out of a discussion on the next phase of the Kennet Island development.

I was shocked to see that officers were recommending that of the 546 homes to be built, just 19 were set aside as affordable (social) housing. The developers had apparently negotiated with the council a payment of £3m after the houses were built for the council to build its own housing elsewhere. When I asked why this should be allowed, Cllr Pete Ruhemann, Labour chair of the committee, explained that this was common practice for developers to buy their way out of any commmittment to build social housing and was necessary to attract developers to our town.

Just think about it for a minute, a developer with a huge new development which, even if they make an average of just £50,000 profit on each home will bring in £27m, is offering £3m to Reading which which it may be able to build (if Labour ever did build any new council housing) perhaps 30-35 units. Add in the 19 social housing units actually being built and you can see that wonderful Labour, whose main aim in life is apparently to support the poor and the vulnerable, have managed to squeeze 54 social housing units out of the 546 being built, a rate of 10% of the new build.

Given the 9,000 odd names on waiting lists in Reading and Labour’s committment to affordable housing, this is a complete disgrace. This is how Labour support the poor and needy in Reading. Cllr Ruhemann and the Labour Party should hang their heads in shame. Labour cannot be trusted on housing and they are guilty of obvious porkies over the last few years about their support for affordable housing.