Issue 4 Spring 2007
COUNCIL DAMNED BY COMMISSION
"Affordability…clearly only applies to the more affluent local households…"
The Audit Commission is hardly a radical body. It's an independent watchdog that aims to ensure that public money is properly spent, and chose Higher Broughton for a `Performance Review' because it received over £13million, the highest level of Housing Market Renewal (HMR) funding in Salford between 2003 and 2006.
The massive housing project has been created by the Higher Broughton Partnership – a partnership between Salford City Council, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Inpartnership and City Spirit – and the Commission looked at the role of public money within this – who takes the risk (Salford Council) and who get the profits (everyone else).
Its remit wasn't necessarily to look at affordable housing. Indeed, it praises Salford Council in parts and salutes the Partnership's objectives to establish `housing products and neighbourhoods that will attract new, more affluent residents'. Yet, in a 40 page report, released last December, the Audit Commission, in its own bureaucratic terms, let rip…
Here's the main points with a translation underneath…