Bolton joins national ‘march for homes’ | News

We'll march from Farnworth to Manchester this Wednesday (11 March) as part of a national campaign calling for the government to solve the UK’s chronic housing shortage.

Around 40 of our tenants and staff will walk nine-miles, in support of the National Housing Federation’s Homes for Britain campaign.

When our march arrives at Manchester, we'll join-up with those organised by other housing providers for a rally at Piccadilly Gardens. The marches, which are backed by all the main UK housing organisations, are happening up and down the country, and aim to draw attention to the current lack of investment in new and existing housing stock.

Our Chief Executive Jon Lord is also taking part, walking from Burnley to Congleton over three days, as part of the Homes for Britain national campaign route.

Jon, who'll complete the march during personal leave, said: “Bolton has around 33,000 private Victorian terraced houses, many of which are owned by landlords who are not investing in them, so the lifespan of these houses is shortening fast. Meanwhile, Bolton’s renewal programme, which was previously worth £10m a year, is now £1m a year. In fact, it is thanks only to Bolton Council that there is still a private sector renewal fund left as they are one of only a handful of authorities in the country still supporting it.

“However, if thousands of homes were to disappear, we’d have a housing crisis the like of which we’ve never seen before. We need more of all types of housing, new-build private housing, new-build affordable housing, more private rented sector homes, and more homes for shared ownership and so on. The government are not doing enough to address this situation, here and across the country. This march is all about showing our support to end the housing crisis within a generation.”

The Bolton marchers will pick up the baton, a large symbolic key, from other North West housing associations who between them will have already walked the distance between Silverdale in Lancashire and Bolton. The regional march will end in Congleton, Cheshire on Thursday 12 March, ahead of a national rally in Westminster on Tuesday 17 March.

Our Bolton march will also raise money for Reall, an international housing charity, and Urban Outreach.

Reasons to support the campaign locally:

• The North West has around 130,000 empty private sector homes. This is over 30,000 more than any region and the highest proportion of vacant stock in the country.
• Private sector rents are expected to rise by 46% in the North West over the next 10 years.
• It's expected that 22,000 new households will form in the region each year, however in 2011/12 only 9,600 new properties were built providing homes for just 44% of them.
• An average house in Bolton costs £89,000 meaning a 10% deposit is around £9,000.
• Social housing waiting lists have grown faster in the North West than anywhere else in the country in the last 10 years. There are nearly 20,000 people on the housing register in Bolton, with over 3,000 actively seeking a property each quarter.

What we're doing:

In the last 12-months, we've created more than 100 new housing opportunities through a combination of new-build and bringing empty properties back into use.

During 2015-18, we'll look to bring forward more affordable housing provision at every opportunity. Over this period, we'll build 134 new homes under the affordable homes programme as well continuing to bring empty properties back into use. However, this is still unlikely to reach the 377 per year that are needed to meet demand.

We'll also look to raise the quality of privately rented homes through leasehold management and improve the condition of non-decent homes occupied by older and vulnerable owner occupiers in partnership with Bolton Council, which is investing circa £4m over the next two years to do this.