Will changing housing rules in rural areas be thought of as 'Levelling Up' by families in need?

 The Government has announced a £125m bribe to Councils who remove local connection tests from their agreed housing policies in order to help victims of domestic abuse. The funding will come from the 'Department for Levelling Up' who will launch a consultation into the matter.

The cash can be used to support healthcare,social workers, benefits,interpreters, immigration advice and other services for victims.

The release of the news via the Daily Mirror kickstarted a crescendo of noise across social media particularly in the North and West of the County from young families caught in the property trap, living in high cost private rents who aspire to be housed in Council or Housing Association homes and fear they will be pressed down the Northumberland County Council homefinder queues if local connection tests are abandoned because the cash strapped Council needs access to Government cash.

Onevery articulate message said: 'It's been reported the County Council is borrowing £43m to pour into the pockets of developers to build Affordable Homes, when it really needs to invest in increasing the County's social housing stock to help families like my own live in a decent home, supplied by the Council or a housing association who will treat us with respect. I do worry about people who suffer from domestic abuse but cutting off locals in need anddamaging our aspirations in life is wrong and I hope our Councillors will reject this reported consultation.'

This Levelling Up report comes directly on the back of an industry report stating that private landlords need to increase their holdings by 230,000 per year overthe next decade.

We here at Murky would like to think Council's should listen to its residents who would rather live in well managed social housing and switch their borrowing requirements towards what people want and the safety aspect of domestic abuse can be encompassed into the enlargement of social stock locally and nationally and stop the plague of second home ownership driving residents into the hands of absentee landlords and the problems that policy brings. The answer to the forthcoming consultation must be to ask how does the suggestion help level up Rural and East Coast towns housing problems!