PEOPLE of Oxford, especially council tenants, should beware the fanfare accompanying the announcement of the housing group GreenSquare’s intended development in this city.

Once the trumpetings have faded we will find that the icing on the cake is in reality a mere gloss.

Nowhere does the council define what it means by affordable housing.

Affordable for who is the question. GreenSquare’s blurb assures us they are philanthropically intent on providing social housing.

They do not explain what they really mean by ‘social housing’. Do they mean housing association dwellings, actual council housing, or charitable accommodation?

We must not be lulled into a false sense of complacent expectancy by Kevin McCloud’s words of eco-development, regeneration and visions of a foward-looking city.

A look at the who’s who of the GreenSquare group is illuminating.

The group comprises an assortment of accountants, architects, management and business administrators and property managers.

Not one among this motley assemblage of housing association mandarins has any apparent connection with council housing.

GreenSquare refer to themselves as a “pioneering housing, regeneration and social investment agency…” and their plans for their Oxford sites claim new homes as low-cost rent, shared ownership and some for private sale.

This is nothing but housing association development of city council-owned land.

Other GreenSquare developments, e.g. Oakus, inform us that they take deposits for their new houses which are called Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs), for which a deposit is paid.

Does not sound much like houses for council tenants to me.

The avowed aim of GreenSquare is to “…maximise income from commercial operations, in order to reinvest in social housing and services.”

More sinister is their aim to “adopt” public open spaces – the trite claim of reduction of cost through public space adoption, thus “…providing a real alternative to the more common local authority route”.

Our public open spaces are to be privatised and earmarked for non-secure tenancies.

Resist this housing association and venture capital exploitation of Oxford’s housing problems.

Our city council is not just selling the family silver they are selling the right of our present and future generations to decent, direct labour-maintained homes at fair rents.

ERIC W EDWARDS, Craufurd Road, Oxford