On Sunday 13th March, Islington Labour councillors joined thousands of other demonstrators to march against the Tory Government’s Housing and Planning Bill. 

As Cllr James Murray, Executive Member for Housing and Development, has written elsewhere the Housing Bill is an attack on social housing, an attack on working families, and an attack on the mixed communities that we in Islington and across London are proud of.

The Bill contains plans that would be extremely damaging for Islington –

• Forcing the council to sell-off thousands of council homes on the open market;
• Introducing ‘Pay to Stay’, forcing families on modest incomes to pay up to market-level rents;
• Scrapping secure tenancies for new council tenants;
• Making ‘affordable housing’ a meaningless term by applying it to include homes for sale up to £450,000.

Islington Labour continues to fight this Bill and councillors were proud to march against the Bill alongside tenants and Islington residents.

Cllr Richard Watts, Leader of Islington Council, commented: “This Tory Bill is an attack on Islington and we will fight it every step of the way. It was heartening to see so many Islington residents on the march, and I was proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder with them, alongside many Islington Labour councillors.

“The Tory Government must listen to the chorus of opposition to this Bill and scrap it.”

Pictured: Islington Labour councillors and Labour councillors from across London at the anti-Housing Bill March.