The Government is proposing to force Milton Keynes Council to sell of its specialist OAP and disabled peoples bungalows.

The highly respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a report highlighting that if the Housing and Planning Bill going through Parliament becomes law it will force Councils to sell of its high value properties (https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/great-british-bungalow-sell-1-4-forced-council-house-sales-could-be-bungalows).

Milton Keynes Council has a long record of building high quality Council bungalows and currently has a programme to build more much needed bungalows.

Cabinet Housing member Cllr Hannah O’Neill said, “The Council provides 2658 bungalows and has built 26 new ones since 2014. Of these 588 are specialist disabled friendly and 73 linked to sheltered housing. But all bungalows help people to manage the challenge of getting older, often with less mobility. The Housing and Planning Bill before Parliament will hit Milton Keynes hard. It will force us to sell high value bungalows and give the cash back to the Government.”

See http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7331

Part 4 of the Bill sets out how the money from selling high value properties will go back to the Government.

Health and Wellbeing Cabinet member Cllr Nigel Long added, “Specialist bungalows for older and disabled people are central to the Councils social care policy of supporting people to remain in the community and they are central to our work with the health service to keep older people out of hospital where possible. Forcing the Council to sell off existing and future bungalows when they become empty is a really bad proposal from an out of touch government.”

Council Leader Cllr Pete Marland concluded, “We believe the government is creating further housing problems for Milton Keynes. They have caused the housing shortage, this has led to the record level of homelessness locally and nationally. Now they want to sell of OAP and disabled persons bungalows. We will do all in our power to oppose this.”