The land on the former Essex County Hospital site was given to Colchester by wealthy benefactors for the benefit of the town. The current plans for this site will not provide any significant benefits to the town or meet the current and future needs of Colchester residents. With just under 3000 households on the council’s housing register the pressing need for Colchester is the provision of homes for the most deprived members of our community; young families, unable to get on to the housing ladder, key workers like nurses and other NHS staff and elderly residents, often isolated and living in family homes, with little prospect of moving into smaller, town centre located houses because of a shortage of secure rented accommodation. The current plans are also likely to significantly increase the number of cars in the area, as high value properties tend to attract two or even more cars per dwelling. Despite plans for 149 parking spaces it is highly likely there will be overspill parking in the already congested local streets. Our town centre is already blighted with congestion and serious air pollution. Given the school traffic in this area, there will be dispersal problems for pollution of morning and evening rush hour traffic with such tightly packed houses. A more open design of social housing would avoid such problems, especially if targeted towards the elderly or young families who often have fewer vehicles. The County Council and NHS Hospital Trust are being irresponsible in the design and target market of £500,000 plus homes for the wealthy. The land was originally given to the town to benefit the people of Colchester, not so that future councils could play at property speculation. This publicly owned land should be used to benefit Colchester residents and used for 100% social housing, not the derisory 4 units of unaffordable ‘affordable’ homes you are currently proposing. On behalf of Colchester People's Assembly Against Austerity

It's been revealed that 1 in 50 homes in London are now holiday lets, meaning families and those working in the capital are being forced out of their homes and facing higher rents. Right now, if a home in London is rented out on the holiday let market for more than 90 days in the course of a year then the landlord is required to apply for planning permission to let it out to tourists. However, because there are loads of holiday let companies out there, landlords can bounce from Airbnb to HomeStay to Hostmaker and to FlipKey without regulation. Cash-strapped local councils don't have the staff or the data to track down landlords that are breaking the law. The rise of holiday lets is growing throughout England, and councils outside London have even fewer powers to do anything about it. The massive rise in companies like Airbnb and HomeStay means more evictions for long term tenants, less secure private rented housing available for Londoners and rents are being pushed up.

At the moment, anyone wishing to convert existing office buildings do not have to go through the procedure of getting planning permission from local authorities. This means that more and more flats are being built which do not meet the standard requirement for living. Some of these flats have been described as a “human warehouse” with residents living space measuring as small as 13ft by 13ft. Living in such a small area can cause people’s physical and mental wellbeing deteriorating. There is no excuse for developments like this. We are calling on the Government to change the rules around office to flat conversions and make developers seek planning permission. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Minimum_space_standards

Everyone deserves to call a house a home. We need a housing system that puts people before profit. Right now, a law called section 21 means landlords can evict renters with just two months’ notice without being given a reason. This law allows landlords to respond to a request for a repair to be made by carrying out a “revenge eviction” on their tenants. The Government is currently consulting on ending section 21 and replacing it with new laws. We want to ensure that these new laws abolish unfair evictions and provide safe, secure and fair homes for tenants. Renters need more control over their housing situation.

This is important to prevent people becoming entrenched in rough sleeping. People find themselves homeless for all sorts of reasons and are entitled to receive safe shelter and professional support immediately. In the first seven months of 2019 alone, 19 deaths of homeless people have been reported in Brighton and Hove. Please sign this petition to put pressure on Brighton and Hove City Council to do more to prevent further deaths.

Quarriers James Shields Project has been delivering vital homelessness accommodation and support to young people, 16 - 25 years old, in the Glasgow area for over 20 years. The young people who use the service have complex situations including, histories of abuse, mental health difficulties and a lack of support. Some are completely isolated Asylum Seekers. This service is now being closed. At a time when Scotland has the highest drug death statistics in Europe and increased suicide, the loss of such a vital service, with no established alternative, will potentially have life threatening consequences for some young people. The safety of young people is the obvious priority for this petition, however Glasgow is also on the verge of losing 28 trained, specialised staff, who have been invested in with tax payers money. It is essential that young people, who have often been unprotected in childhood, continue to have access to safe, supported accommodation when in the crisis of homelessness.

Cities across Europe - Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam already have systems of rent control. Westminster needs to step up and give the Mayor of London rent control powers, and the Mayor of London needs to make sure that these are implemented as soon as possible - so we can afford to live in London.

Southwold is dying because local people are being priced out of homes by holiday lets. Two thirds of homes are holiday lets. The average house price is 21 times the average wage. We need 100 more affordable homes to rent quickly before our community dies. Our average age is 65. We want to hear children playing on our greens again. We want a vibrant community that welcomes visitors but is not banished by them. The government still subsidies second home owners who pay no rates. Local homes are developed into five bedroom holiday lets. Cleaners are bussed in. This is social apartheid. East Suffolk Council say that we have enough affordable homes, when we hear 40 local people applied for one last week. We need 100 as soon as possible in Southwold Ward which includes Reydon and Walberswick, but definitely before the next Council elections in 2023. As seen on Anglia TV on Friday evening.

Holiday lets are ripping Scotland’s communities apart. In some places, there are now more holiday lets than normal homes for rent. That means families with nowhere to go are forced out of the places they’ve called home all their lives. But it doesn’t have to be like this. The Scottish government are asking the public for views on what to do about holiday lets, and together we can make sure we win real protections for our communities. The big lobbyists protecting companies like Airbnb will be working double-time to stop any new regulations that could hit their astronomic profits. It’s down to us to drown them out.

Short term lets are spreading across London, taking homes away from local renters, preventing people from living in the communities where they grew up, and pushing up rents. Hostmaker’s distasteful tube ad is undermining the Mayor of London’s plans to make housing affordable in London, by encouraging landlords to kick out their tenants to create holiday homes. We want the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to ban Hostmaker ads from all Transport For London spaces Every day millions of people see these ads. Our Mayor-run transport infrastructure should be promoting organisations like Generation Rent and local renter unions, who are working to fix the housing crisis, rather than companies like Hostmaker who are actively making things worse.

About "Zara" "Zara" is a recovering survivor of both Domestic violence and trafficking perpetrated by her daughters father. She is a British national who approached Brighton and Hove city council as homeless following the decision to flee her previous address known to her perpetrator and the trafficking ring he is affiliated with, after being turned down by refuge. She presented with ten years worth of evidence including her perpetrators firearms convictions. Despite all this the council have advised they wish to make "Zara" and her baby intentionally homeless. This experience is not new to her; having been intermittently homeless for ten years as a result of her experiences, perpetuated by the systemic refusal to acknowledge domestic violence as a cause of homelessness, she is a veteran of being at the receiving end of local authority discrimination, minimization, denial and eradication of what she has been thorough and thus her plight for safe housing continues. "Zara" is not a solitary statistic. Across the board domestic violence and trafficking survivors are being denied safe housing upon fleeing. With refuges facing ever shrinking funding cuts and local authorities selling off housing stock, survivors are at the tail end of a regime that fails to address the risk posed to lives when refused the means to escape. A drastic reform is needed of the public sector for housing, starting with BHCC who currently have the highest number of women sleeping rough nationwide.

The sleeper units will provide shelter, warmth & safety and allow frontline services to provide vital support plus help accommodate people into permanent homes and instead of letting people sleep rough due to lack of safe temporary accommodation