Successive County Hall administrations have been “failing in housing”, an independent Isle of Wight councillor lamented yesterday (Tuesday).
Following council leader Phil Jordan’s departure to a meeting in Ryde, Cllr Geoff Brodie told watchdog group the corporate scrutiny committee County Hall was “not achieving” in the “supposed” prioritised policy area.
In an impassioned address towards the end of the evening session, he said:
“In housing in general, we’re failing. I felt like running up the white flag. It’s all negativity.
“Housing is supposedly the priority of this administration and I don’t care what’s in that (council) report there, you’re not achieving it.
“I would have said that to Dave Stewart if he was the leader of the council.
“I would have said that to David Pugh before that, I would have said that to you, Ian, when you were leader, to Jonathan Bacon when he was the leader.
“I’d even go back as far as Andy Sutton – I would have said it to all of them. You’re failing.”
Cllr Brodie spelled out a list of specific grievances covering homelessness, housing affordability, and County Hall’s overall housing strategy.
The representative for Pan and Barton spoke of finding four rough sleepers in Newport in the last two weeks, described the council’s rough sleeping figures for the last year as a “nonsense” and labelled its homelessness prevention rates as “pitiful”.
Council data shows 15 per cent of approaches made to the council relating to homelessness in 2023/24 resulted in “proactive” support to prevent homelessness by the council’s team.
He also questioned a “miserable” County Hall affordable housing statistic: whether almost half of the 327 affordable housing units built in the last five years could actually be described as affordable.
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