Hackney has a growing variety of independent news sites and blogs, many of them very good in different ways. Blood and Property best fits the description of citizen journalism we're adding to our list at present: a Londoner who is inquisitive, persistent, literate, sane, interested in local issues and very interested in politics. After a bit of public nagging it has secured a really fascinating Q & A with Hackney Council leader Jules Pipe. Sample exchange:
Blood and Property: To what extent do you think that changes in the borough are related to property prices and new people moving here - how easily do you think that this process could be reversed (i.e. do you think that many hackney residents see their homes as investments or just as homes?)
Jules Pipe: Hackney is a very popular borough for a variety of reasons, including its improving transport links, its vastly improved schools, popular leisure facilities such as London Fields Lido and its many parks, its status as a vibrant arts and cultural hub, amongst many other reasons.
The Council's research suggests that many of those moving into the borough since 2003 have been young, childless households on higher incomes than the current borough average, who rent privately. The impact of rising property prices in Hackney - as for London and the whole country - means that while owner-occupiers who bought during the past few decades will have benefited considerably from capital gains or opportunities to rent out their homes, the market has become very expensive for first-time buyers. This would suggest that the driving factor for today's incomers is the desire to live in the borough, rather than seeking investment opportunities.
The Council is committed to ensuring high quality, affordable housing for all Hackney residents. Right now across Hackney construction work is taking place to build hundreds of new social-rented and affordable homes, including council housing, after the Council lobbied the Government and received a total of over £43million in Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) funding since last September.
For almost 30 years, affordable housing across the country often only got built as a spin-off of new private developments, and the downturn in the housing market threatened to bring even that to a halt. The commercial marketplace cannot be left as the only force to drive how housing is delivered. The Council has been working with the Government and its agencies and has successfully strengthened their confidence to give Hackney their social housing investment directly, so that we can deliver homes that are much needed by local residents.
That's the stuff. Individual Guardian entry here.
