Caroline Lucas, Green general election candidate for Brighton Pavilion constituency, has spoken out on Brighton and Hove's troubling housing situation.

This follows the recent report by Shelter [1] which calculated that it would take Brighton and Hove council nearly nine years to clear their housing backlog, placing Brighton in the bottom third of the country. Shelter says a total of 82 authorities would take between a decade and 33 years to clear their waiting lists - or until 2019 to 2042.

Caroline Lucas, Brighton and Hove's Green MEP, said "I'm horrified by these figures. With Christmas fast approaching, I can imagine how difficult it must be for families living in temporary accommodation, or waiting to be moved.

"And with the weather getting colder by the day, it is unacceptable that we should even have one homeless person sleeping on the streets in the UK. In Brighton and Hove, there are many charities doing wonderful work with those forced to sleep rough. But they cannot solve the problem on their own."

Caroline, who hopes to become Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, continued, "The Green Party believes that the Government has a key role to play in addressing the housing crisis by employing building workers in a large programme of environmentally sustainable social housing, creating both new homes and new jobs.

"And locally, the Council has a responsibility to make extra efforts to ensure empty homes are brought into use - a real problem here in Brighton. Greens strongly advocate extra support to enable the homeless to get off the streets and into safe accommodation."

"Many families are forced to leave the city because they cannot find affordable homes, and workers such as nurses, teachers and local government workers struggle to afford to live in the communities they work for.

"The Council needs to introduce first time buyer grants, which would revive the private housing market, and stop the sale of council houses in order to put an end to this postcode lottery of housing."

1. For the full report please see http://england.shelter.org.uk/news/december_2009/over_10_years_to_clear_waiting_lists

For more information please contact the Brighton and Hove Green Party office on 01273 766 670.