Almost any conversation about homes will sooner or later come back to the selling off of council houses. The next sentence from people is often that the mistake was not re-investing the money in replacing that stock. With what I’ve seen as a councillor, I have concluded, that to get community-led homes, for those that need them, where we need them, then we have no choice but to enable councils to build homes again. If we really want to retain and attract key staff to our highest priority local services, then we have little choice. Land value reform is the long-term solution, because that would address the base problem of the cost of land once it has building permission. However, talk to anyone about affordability and they tell you it no longer exists. If I were to ever find myself in a position of influence in Westminster, then supporting changes to allow affordable homes in Berkshire would have to be a priority.

Speaking of priorities, it was an interesting read on page 10 of the Newbury Weekly News last week about the new Liberal Democrat candidate for Reading West & Mid Berkshire constituency Helen Belcher. According to the article, her top priorities have nothing to do with the constituency. It was about making sure we all know she is Trans and that she wants to move back to her birthplace. I also noted that there was no mention that she has not only lost twice when running for MP in Chippenham, but that the local Lib Dem members did not select her either.

She says at one point “I’m ready now”, therefore I guess we should conclude she was not ready when running before.

I do wonder if others who read the nearly full-page interview will also conclude Helen’s priorities seem to be, me me me. You would think that with so many column inches we would have heard something about what she wanted to do for the constituency!

I seriously doubt voters want another MP focused solely on themselves.