THE group that represents council tenants in Swindon has criticised the Government’s plans to address the housing crisis.

The Swindon Tenants Campaign Group described the white paper as a “damp squib” and said that the decision to devote just one page of a 104 document to local authority housing demonstrates a lack of commitment on the issue.

The Government’s proposals were billed as a ‘bold new plan to fix the broken housing market and build more homes across England’.

Ministers have said the white paper sets out measures aimed at reducing the planning obstacles to house building in the UK.

They argue that it will lay the groundwork to help local authorities and developers construct the homes that are much needed to fill the gap left over from a period where it is widely acknowledged that the rate of housebuilding was insufficient.

It also proposes measures aimed at improving affordability and protections for renters and home buyers.

Housing minister Gavin Barwell said: “We are setting out lasting reforms that will get more of the right homes built in the right places, right now.

“We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to fix the broken housing market problems and help them find a home of their own.”

But the group that represents council tenants in Swindon says the focus on private sector development masks an equally pressing issue around a shortage of public housing.

Between 2010 and March 2016, the number of council or housing association homes in England fell from 1.78m to 1.6m.

The only funding the Government has earmarked for the public sector is the ‘affordable homes programme’ grant, which aims to deliver 8,000 units of supported housing for elderly and disabled people.

The white paper states that the Government intends to “work with local authorities to understand all the options for increasing the supply of affordable housing.”

Campaigners argue that does not go far enough.

Martin Wicks, secretary of the Swindon Tenants Campaign Group, said: “The white paper is a damp squib. It will do little to address the housing crisis.

“The sale of millions of council homes has created an acute shortage of genuinely affordable homes to rent, which the expensive private rental market has partly filled.

“Look at the graph of historic house building and you will see the decline in building numbers closely follows the fall in council house building.

“It’s high time that ‘right to buy’ was abandoned. Councils are not replacing homes sold and the number of council homes continues to decline. In Swindon they have fallen from 10,515 in 2011/12 to 10,265 in December 2016.

“Only a return to large scale council house building will create the homes that are desperately needed.”