Without Irony!
In an exchange on Nextdoor, the social media platform, Cllr Shaban Mohammed BSc (from the university of nowheresville) has become engaged in a bit of a spat about housing.
Here is Mohammed’s argument for the long waiting list
Apparently, the long waiting list is the result of not reviewing the allocations policy. He and Mayor Fiaz have been in charge for almost half of that period and have just woken up? Of course, the response is a ludicrous non-sequitur.
The reason that the housing list is so long is that 20,000 people have registered for subsidised housing. When Mohammed implies that the allocations policy needs to be reviewed, are we to assume that he has a wheeze to reduce the numbers on the waiting list?
Just imagine, how about increasing the time resident in Newham to say, five years before you can go onto the list or restricting the qualifying criteria.
You get the picture. It is easy to reduce the numbers on the waiting list simply by changing the eligibility criteria. Is that Mohammed’s secret plan?
Our calculations and observations suggest that without government subsidy, the Wales regime added some 3000 properties to Newham’s housing portfolio and that the current mayor is relying upon properties planned or begun under Wales to meet two thirds of her promised 1000 council homes. (Of course, she isn’t on target to make 1000, and the number is likely to be below 700.)
She has been helped in her plans by the windfall from the Conservative government of £100m.
Which brings us to Mohammed’s clinching argument, which is that
This comes from the multi-property owner and businessman Shaban Mohammed.
Are we to understand this to mean that Newham’s housing policy is there to protect residents from people like himself?