Not enough houses ... Not enough jobs ... Not enough money. But when can we  expect to see some action?

Imagine a land where population growth brings rising unemployment, poverty and lack of housing, and the only jobs that are available are the most basic and poorest paid.
Sound familiar?
Oddly enough, the description is a summary of life in Elizabethan England around 500 years ago – although the similarities with the present Elizabethan England are too uncomfortable to ignore.
Which brings us to a pair of “assessments” - commissioned by Boston Borough and East Lindsey District Councils - a Strategic Housing Market Assessment and an Economic Viability Assessment, covering what is being called “Coastal Lincolnshire.”
Insofar as they can be deciphered by the average punter, they paint a pretty gloomy picture.
A policy for Boston set out in November 2006 said the borough council would try to negotiate that 30% of dwellings provided on sites of 15 or more dwellings within Boston or Kirton and five or more dwellings elsewhere in the district should be affordable housing - split between 60% social rent and 40% shared ownership.
At the time only 38 affordable homes a year were being completed in the borough, and by April 2010 an average of 43 affordable homes a year had been completed since 2005.
Compare this with an estimate which says Boston needs a net annual affordable housing of 100 dwellings, and you will realise just how wide the gulf is.
The assessment says that the government’s comprehensive spending review will have implications for housing policy and strategy outside of the strategic housing market assessments and cuts in affordable housing grant, and the local housing allowance may affect the existing affordability of both public and private rent as well as new development:
On affordable housing, the target put forward in the assessment for Boston is 20%.
It also says that the borough might consider the potential for the use of urban extensions – and has modelled a notional 2,000 unit scheme in Boston – although it doesn’t think that this is realistic.
Meanwhile, unemployment has begun to rise again at a rapid rate and was around 3.5% in Boston last year - and the assessment says that more than 80% of all new social tenants had no earnings from employment - which shows that many new lettings are to households which are entirely dependent on benefits.
How Boston plans to address this is anyone’s guess – but  as usual, other Lincolnshire district councils seem to be grasping the nettle.
Already there has been an announcement that more than 200 affordable homes are to be built in East Lindsey in the next three years after the district douncil pumped £2.5million into its housing capital programme to fund a partnership with a housing group.
And work has started on the first new council houses in Lincoln for 20 years.
In a nutshell, Boston needs more housing – but of equal … if not greater importance … it needs more job creation.
And as we have said before it needs a change of attitude by Boston’s great and good who need to disabuse themselves of the idea that the only place for the town’s workforces is either the packhouse or the field.
But the bottom line is  - we have to to stop talking about it and start doing something about it.


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