Labour has again ignored disabled people when making a major housing announcement, after revealing plans for a “new generation of new towns” but refusing to explain how it will ensure they are designed to be accessible to disabled people.
Housing secretary Steve Reed told his party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Sunday that the 12 new towns across England would include GP surgeries, libraries, schools, green spaces and transport links.
Building work on three of the new towns will begin before the next general election, with the government working with “world class architects”.
Reed said he would do “whatever it takes” to build the homes.
But Labour this week failed to make any pledge that accessibility would be central to the design of the new towns.
Asked for Reed’s promise to disabled people on the new towns, the Labour party had refused to comment by noon today (Thursday), three days after Disability News Service (DNS) asked the question.
Nearly 15 months after the general election, disabled people are still waiting for the new government to say whether it will introduce stricter minimum accessibility standards for new-build homes in England, three years after a pledge by the last Conservative government – which was never fulfilled – to take action to address the critical shortage of accessible housing.
At last year’s conference, after DNS questioned the party on the failure of ministers to mention the accessible housing crisis, a Labour spokesperson had promised that the government would “set out its policies on accessible new build housing shortly”.
A year on, and disabled people are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.
Reed was also the latest Labour minister to say the government was fighting for “hard working people”, apparently ignoring those who are unable to work, including many disabled people who need accessible homes.
He was speaking as an independent report – commissioned by the government – recommended 12 potential locations for new towns across England, with at least 10,000 new homes in each location.
But a brief search through the 135-page report appears to show no mentions of disabled people or the accessible housing crisis, although there is a brief reference to the need for “homes for older people, as well as specialist housing built to accessible and adaptable standards”.
Emily Pomroy-Smith, a member of Disability Labour’s executive committee, said the new towns appeared to be a “really exciting opportunity to set the benchmark for accessibility” and it was crucial for disabled people to be involved in those plans from the beginning.
She said there was no reason why accessibility could not be built into the foundations of the programme.
Disabled activist Flick Williams, a retired disability equality trainer and access consultant, who was in Liverpool to take part in a Disabled People Against Cuts protest outside the conference (see separate story), said she was not at all optimistic about the new towns announcement.
She said the “signs were there” when there was no mention of the accessible housing crisis in last autumn’s National Planning Policy Framework.
She said: “We are just missing from everything they do.”
She said her message to Reed was: “If you want disabled people to be active in the labour market, you need to build us accessible homes.”
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