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AN Edinburgh City Council candidate for the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) has declared council house building the party’s core priority.
Richard Shillcock, who will contest the by-election in the Southside/Newington ward, slammed decades of market-driven housing policy which left both the capital and Scotland at large facing a housing emergency.
“There is only one answer to it — build council houses,” he said.
“We need the council to build, own, maintain, and administer council housing and not leave such an important issue to the free market.
“We need to employ council staff and invest in a new generation of apprentices to learn the skills required to build and maintain the highest-quality council housing.
“Large-scale council house building was the best answer to the postwar housing crisis. It worked.
“Since then, turning homes into commodities in a market has failed us.”
He said that the CPB would “spend on homes for people, not endless warfare.”
Mr Shillcock is standing alongside Peter Olech, the CPB candidate for the Portobello/Craigmillar ward, and both by-elections will take place on September 3.
by Andrew Murray, Political reporter
As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR
Building is the solution for much of our housing crisis – and will also help to address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation, writes KENNY MacASKILL
