The Salford City Mayor and the Salford City Partnership have chosen to launch an anti-poverty strategy, titled `No one left behind', at The Landing in MediaCityUK an area ranked within the 10% least deprived in the country and where a flat at Peel Holdings' new apartment block, The Lightbox, can set you back over £385,000*.
The Landing is a controversial building in the heart of Media City, originally partly earmarked as a community space called Make Media, before the funding for it was the first cut under the `austerity' programme.
Instead, The Landing, a `high-tech hub' for small and medium digital companies (which includes a private members club), received £14million of public money, with almost £4million from Salford Council during 2012, the year of the biggest Council spending cuts for a generation (see here).
The following year, the Salford Star revealed that the Council had paid out over £12,000 per month as a consultant payment for managing The Landing to a company owned by its Chief Executive Jon Corner (see here).
The Landing will host the launch of the anti-poverty strategy, to an invited audience, on 16th February. The Salford Star has obtained a draft of the document which has a forward by Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, declaring, "despite the success of the city's continued growth, it is clear that not all of Salford's residents are sharing in the benefits of this prosperity"...
The Mayor adds that the strategy "restates Salford's commitment to tackling poverty and inequality and sets out the approach we will take over the next few years to give residents the very best chance of a poverty free future...
"...As well as taking action to make things better for the many households struggling to make ends meet now, we must also look to prevent people from falling into poverty in the first place, building on what we know is already working, as well as developing new ways of doing things" he explains "We want our work to become a beacon of best practice in the fight against poverty..."
One of the causes of poverty listed is Personal Debt. Salford is ranked as the 38th most indebted local authority area in the country, with 19.8% of people in the city being over indebted, compared to 16.9% in the North West.
The Salford Star recently highlighted the case of a Salford Poverty Truth Commissioner who was charged over £1,000 on a Council Tax debt of £365 by bailiffs employed by Salford Council, thus putting her in even more poverty (see here).
Today the Salford Star received an email from a disabled resident on benefits who missed one payment of his Council Tax this year, for £11.63 and was threatened with court and a Liability Order, plus £82 costs if he didn't pay up within seven days.
Within the anti-poverty strategy, the question is asked;`What are we going to do about it?' and the answer is that it will ensure "The collection of outstanding debts and charges is undertaken in as sensitive manner as possible, and in a way that does not create further hardship, distress or financial difficulties for vulnerable people..."
Another way the Council states it will be "Preventing people from falling into poverty in the first place" is by creating more affordable homes...
"It is clear we need more low cost rented and social housing in Salford to support the city's existing and growing population" the strategy states "Current estimates suggest the city needs to build around 750 new low-cost rented homes per year to meet future housing need"...
The Salford Star has documented the loss of over one thousand affordable homes that should have been provided as part of developers' Section 106 payments that were waived in the planning process.
The Star has also documented over the last ten years the deliberate bulldozing by Salford Council of affordable housing, which has been replaced by unaffordable housing (see here). The latest example of this is in Pendleton (see here and see here).
Everyone in Salford should know by now that poverty in all its forms is being heightened by Tory Government cuts and welfare policy. But Salford City Council hasn't been beyond blame either. The irony of launching the anti-poverty strategy in the midst of public money gobbling Media City, where few Salford people got real jobs at the BBC, hasn't gone unnoticed...
See also related Salford Star articles...
Salford Council Wins Pimp My Poverty Award click here
*Peel Holdings Wins Feed The Rich Award - see here
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