Today more than two in three people say there is a housing crisis. Public concern about housing is now around the highest level it has been in 40 years. We have a right to expect better, and a right to expect Government and the council to do more to deal with the failings in housing in our city.

Whilst the media attention has been focused on Brexit, it’s easy to forget that after nine years in power, the Government’s record on housing is one of failure on all fronts.

Home-ownership is down sharply, with almost 900,000 fewer young homeowners since 2010, rough sleeping has doubled, private rents have soared, housing benefit spending has increased, and the country is building 30,000 fewer social rented homes each year than with Labour. It is hard to find another area of public policy that is failing so badly.

Many people are finding that however much you save, it still gets harder to buy that first home. However many hours you might work or how much more you might earn, rents still eat up more of you pay packet. And however hard you might try, if you fall on hard times there’s often no safety net to catch you and your family if you can’t pay the mortgage or the rent.

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. Labour’s Plan for Portsmouth has set out some of the ways in which we’ll do things differently in our city ending the tired old ways of the Tories and Lib Dems: building more low cost council and housing association homes; introducing tough new standards for private rented homes; taking action to help first time buyers; and a delivering plan to end rough sleeping.

Sumel Chowdhury, St Thomas ward candidate said:

“Our communities need more Labour councillors that will help our city tackle the housing problems and pressure that people face day-to-day in our area – to build more low-cost hones, end rough sleeping and stand up for private renters.

So at the local election on Thursday 2 May let’s send the Tories and Lib Dems a message that round in our city that we know the Tories don’t stand up for us and that they are failing to tackle the housing crisis. Only Labour can stand up for people on the housing crisis here”.