IN YOUR report on empty houses owned by the city council (Oxford Mail, August 3) the council’s head of property, Steve Sprason, said: “In many cases it was better to sell and reinvest the cash than bring the homes back into use for council tenants.”
If that is the way the city council thinks, then what chance have the 6,000 homeless people in Oxford of finding somewhere to live?
He also said: “The delay in the sale of the Horspath properties was due to the presence of asbestos and a restrictive covenant.”
The council built the houses in the first place, and therefore knew all about the covenant and the asbestos.
To use that as an excuse for the homes being empty for so long must be regarded as rubbish.
The city council leaving its own homes empty until they are unfit to be lived in, and then selling them off with the excuse that it cannot afford to repair them, is similar to the planned closure and subsequent selling of Temple Cowley Pool.
It seems that all the city council is interested in doing is selling off its assets to get money to ease the financial problems which it created itself.
KEITH BROOKS Gateley Horspath Oxford
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