By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Over the past 3 months the government have been undertaking a consultation process entitled “Options for Dealing with Squatters” which came to an end on October 5th. Squatters Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH) have accused the government of “ignoring the consultation” by rushing through anti-squatting laws only 3 weeks after the consultation has ended. The squatting consultation response has just been published. 1 90% of responses argued against taking any action on squatting. Of a total of 2217 responses, 2126 were from people concerned about the impact of criminalising squatting. The consultation response recognised “that the statistical weight of responses was therefore against taking any action on squatting”.
The amendment states that making squatting in residential building a criminal offence will “end the misery of home-owners whose properties have been preyed on by squatters”. However strong legislation already exists to protect residents from having their home squatted. Last month 160 leading legal figures wrote an open letter which was published in The Guardian explaining that under Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 it is already a criminal offence to squat someone’s home. 2
SQUASH spokesperson Paul Reynolds, said: “The government is ignoring the results of its own consultation which shows that the criminalisation of squatting in empty residential properties will do nothing to protect residents who are already protected by strong legislation. This amendment will criminalise the homeless in the middle of a housing crisis who use squatting as the last remaining option to keep a roof over their heads.”
John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington said:“By trying to sneak this amendment through the back door the government are attempting to bypass democracy. There was over 2,200 responses to the consultation on squatting so there is no way the government could have acknowledged all the evidence”.
As long as there are millions of empty housing stock, and other buildings, and millions of homeless we must keep the squatting option open.
SQUASH says that there are 700,000 empty properties across the UK according to the empty homes figures but those do not list all of them. Estates such as the Ocean Estate in Stepney, earmarked for demolition for the last decade or so and still standing, does not even come up in those figures and neither do others that are similarly under redevelopment process.
It is an absolute disgrace for a civilized country – supposedly civilized country, though sometimes we have to wonder – like the UK to have millions of empty properties and homeless people.
The register of empty homes is not a very good guide by which to travel as regards to knowing how many homes really are empty, and this is just properties that are/were classed as “homes”. There are others that once were homes but became business premises and now are handles as such and they too are empty. Let's not even talk about old hospitals, and other such.
People need homes not laws banning the occupation of empty properties. This only benefits the speculators, but then again it is those that the politicians have as friends regardless of the fact that they are supposedly answerable to the electorate, the people.
The people don't count, as far as the majority of our politicians, of whatever persuasion, are concerned.
© 2011
