‘My time so far on the Cabinet has flown by,’ says West Norfolk councillor Jo Rust

West Norfolk Council Cabinet member for people and communities Cllr Jo Rust writes this week’s Friday Politics column...

I know as we get older life passes by at a quicker rate. I experience that every time I see my wonderful grandchildren. But I also can’t get over how quickly the last seven months as Cabinet member for people and communities have gone. What a whirlwind.

I’ve been able to get out and meet so many people for so many different reasons. I’ve attended the hugely successful Food for Thought sessions, currently taking place in Hunstanton, I’ve been to Beat the Bills workshops, the most recent one in Marshland St James, where the community was also presented with a net zero certificate, as well as taking part in meetings related to our health and well-being.

A lot is going on. A lot of focus is on health and staying well in our own homes.It was for this reason that I worked with officers to push forward the Marmot Place concept which was recently referred to in another column in the Lynn News. Being a Marmot Place is about making our society fairer and more equitable because it has been proven that the lower your income, the more likely that you are to experience ill health and disability and be less able to contribute to society.

Health inequalities can cost us between £31-33 billion a year (Black Review, Frontier Economics) so there is a very real cost incentive towards making society more equal. One of the overriding factors in achieving this is providing decent, secure affordable housing. The number of people, including families, living in temporary accommodation has skyrocketed since the Conservative government took control with the Lib Dems in 2010.

Some councils are spending 49 pence out of every one pound collected in council tax on the cost of keeping people in temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfast. This is not sustainable, but more importantly, it’s not healthy. Can you imagine being a family having to live in one small room of a bed and breakfast? How can you cook for your children? You can’t. How can the children study in peace and complete their homework? They can’t. How can they manage their mental health when in such cramped and restrictive accommodation with no access to a garden or safe outside space? They can’t.

It’s for this reason that there is such a focus on providing decent homes. I think the work that our council is doing to alleviate this need is to be commended and a new concept which I am seeking to move forward with is the idea of community-led housing. In its purest form, this sees a group of residents planning, designing and then managing a housing development which has been designed specifically to meet the needs of that local community.

All too often residents have developments which have been foisted on them with only profit in mind. Community-led housing does not do this and any profits that are made are retained and put back into the development in the form of community areas and improvements. I think this idea would suit some of the land allocated for housing which is in the ownership of the council. It would see more affordable and social housing for local people at a cost that they actually can afford.

Now we’re officially in recession more than ever we need to take action to help people rather than force ever bigger bills on them. This Government has failed to meet so many of its targets, including building enough homes and growing the economy. Let’s hope that we can see the back of them later this year