"The high priority given to housing is extremely welcome. I hope there will be a very strong commitment to building substantially more social housing units, and in particular many more family sized larger properties with good access to safe outside space for children to play. Overcrowding in social housing is a major problem in London, especially for black and ethnic minority Londoners, and causes real damage to family relations, people's health and children's educational prospects. In Waltham Forest only a tiny number of social housing units have been built in recent years and there are many families on waiting lists for years, waiting to transfer somewhere bigger. Perhaps look at bedroom numbers per unit rather than numbers of units when setting targets for social housing. Also could you look at the buy to let market which seems to be fueling house price rises and leading to higher rents as well. I'm pleased the government is consulting and hope this will be an annual event."

  

As a longstanding supporter of  Shelter, I have backed their campaign to change the definition of overcrowding to reflect modern needs for space and privacy. If elected to Parliament I would vigorously press ministers to use the powers they already have to have a more realistic measure of overcrwoding so that we can asses the true extent of the problem, which probably runs into several million households (particularly those with children) and ensure that children will have room to study and play, or entertain friends and addults will be subject to less stress and illness caused by their housing conditions.