I read with interest the decision by Bath Council to allow Curo to demolish 542 homes in Foxhill to rebuild with less social housing.
This raises a couple of issues, the combination of reduced social housing in Bath and the rent cap could result in families needing social housing being forced out of Bath to areas such as North East Somerset, as they cannot afford the high rents private landlords demand and cannot find social housing within Bath.
This in turn will put more demand on areas outside of Bath and the current program to build more social housing in areas such as Midsomer Norton. We need to be careful not to inadvertently create social engineering.
Of course the main issue is the current residents of Fox Hill, surely they should have the final say in their community not a handful of councillors who have only visited Fox Hill once or twice.
There’s no doubt that Foxhill would benefit from development but surely this should be to improve the lives of the existing residents particularly low income families and not to provide homes for wealthier people.
We are already seeing issues in certain boroughs of London regarding the provision of social housing particularly to homeless families, see the following article:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/14/london-councils-trying-to-force-homeless-families-outside-the-capital