MP highlights problems at Citilodge hotel as demands made in Westminster over social housing shortage

Simon Lightwood made reference to the ongoing issue of housing homeless people at Citilodge hotel as he questioned levelling up secretary Michael Gove.

Business owners and residents are calling on Wakefield Council to stop using the hotel to house vulnerable residents.

Cafe, shop and pub owners in the Lower Warrengate area say they have faced “ruin” since the council began using it as a “dumping ground”.

Earlier this month, Mr Lightwood called for the hotel to be ‘closed in its current form’ during a meeting to discuss the spiralling crime rate in Wakefield city centre.

During questions to levelling up ministers, Mr Lightwood asked: “Last year the public accounts committee assessed the government’s affordable homes programme.

“It concluded that targets would be missed, areas with high demand were not prioritised and that the savings to be made by reducing temporary accommodation were not assessed.

“In Wakefield, the council is using hotels like Citilodge to house homeless people, because they lack the funding and resources to build or acquire enough social housing.

“When will the Government step in and help councils to address the social housing shortage?”

Mr Gove replied: “There is a housing shortage overall, not just in social housing, and we do need to work with local government and with others to increase supply.

“But the affordable homes programme is a critical part of that, and money would not be available if we were to follow the prescriptions on the economy which the shadow front bench have put forward.”

During the same parliamentary session, Hemsworth Labour MP Jon Trickett accused the government of “pouring cement and tarmac over Yorkshire’s green and pleasant land”.

In a question to minister Rachel Maclean, Mr Trickett pointed to a report by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.

The report found that there are over 1.2m homes that could be built on brownfield land across the country, including 115,000 in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Mr Trickett said: “In Yorkshire there are tens of thousands of families desperate for affordable housing.

“The CPRE says there are potentially 115,000 potential brownfield sites in our county alone.

“Tens of thousands more sites (across the country) have been land banked – planning consents already given for housing.

“Yet there is executive housing popping up like mushrooms in a forcing shed all over my constituency on greenbelt.

“Is the minister really happy that her legacy will be a government which poured cement and tarmac over Yorkshire’s green and pleasant land?”

Ms Maclean replied: “I think this government is going to be extremely proud of a legacy delivering affordable homes and for homes for first time buyers all over the country.”