STROUD District Council leader Steve Lydon keeps you up to date with council matters

LAST week I joined 400 other guests for the launch of a film the council had commissioned to promote tourism in the district.

What a cracking night it was! Snow Business arranged for snow to fall as we arrived at the Sub Rooms, businesses provided food and drinks and the film itself really captured the essence of Stroud.

It’s had thousands of views already on Facebook and I’m sure it will encourage more visitors to the area – whether to holiday here or come and live.

Well done to all the team who arranged the night. It was a lot of hard work, but worth it and I’ve had lots of positive comments from people who were there. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the website visitthecotswolds.org.uk

Sub Rooms Open Day

It’s worth mentioning again that there will be a public open day at the Sub rooms this Saturday. This is for anyone who would like to find out more about the council’s current review, see the information that has been gathered so far and learn about the next stage. If you want to go along it’s from 9.30am-2pm.

  • Thursday, February 9

At the start of the council meeting last week we held a presentation for Ben Smith, to mark his amazing 50 years of working for the council.

Ben started working at the council in 1966 as an apprentice carpenter, on a wage of £3 1s. He painted the first yellow lines on Stroud’s roads and made the first ever Christmas lights for Stroud town centre. His knowledge and expertise is unique, and Ben is currently a central part of the team which oversees the building of new council houses, a subject close to my heart.

  • Friday, February 10

Speaking of new council homes I attended a Gloucestershire-wide conference on Friday entitled 50,000 New Homes – Meeting the Challenge along with other councils, registered social landlords and people with an interest in housing. This came at a good time allowing us to consider the disappointing Housing White Paper that was released by the government earlier that week.

We have a real housing problem in Stroud where the average monthly rent for a private sector property is £722 and the average house price is £266,033 meaning you would need to have a household income of £60,808 for an 80% mortgage. Little wonder that homelessness is on the rise, with a 16 per cent increase in homeless applications over the previous year in Stroud.

I was hoping that the cap on money to build more council houses would be raised or abolished in the White Paper, however there is no mention of social rent or of anything that is “affordable” in relation to earnings rather than house prices. In Stroud it’s becoming more and more difficult to access the private sector for those on Housing Benefit, due to the widening gap between rent levels and the help level available to low income families from Housing Benefit. It sets out no clear role for Councils or Housing Associations to playing a bigger role in helping to solve the housing crisis. Fortunately in Stroud we have budgeted to spend £8million on providing more affordable rental homes for people who desperately need them.