Andrew Dismore

Dear Editor,

Money for Grahame  Park is welcome, but the key problem  is that this is not  going to provide any extra genuinely  affordable homes for Grahame Park or anywhere else for that matter,  homes that  are desperately needed. The Conservatives have made clear time and again that they  are not interested in providing homes for less well off people. They only want wealthy people who are   ‘good Conservative voters’, in an  echo of the scandalous and unlawful gerrymandering of Westminster City  Council in the 1980s. All they are doing  is speeding  up that process.

We desperately need more homes for local people to live in- for the adult children of local families who haven’t  a prayer of being able to stay  in the area where they grew up;  for those who keep our Borough  going, and not just those who empty our bins and sweep our  streets; not just those who  deliver our letters, like the postman I met at Hendon’s sorting office last week facing eviction  by the council from his West Hendon flat where he has lived as a ‘temporary’  tenant for 11 years; not just  those who work in local cafes and shops; but  now even young teachers and doctors who are also priced out of Colindale’s  new homes.

If the Conservatives really cared about the ordinary  people of  Grahame  Park (as they have deigned to find out where it is and visit it for a photo opportunity ) and Hendon , that money could  and should have been spent on making available for genuinely affordable  renting to local people  hundreds of extra homes from those going up in their thousands and earmarked for sale on the open market at ever inflating  prices in Colindale,  rather than speeding up and fuelling the  property  bubble,  which it is set to do.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Dismore

Labour Parliamentary candidate  for Hendon

London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden