Islington’s “middle-class” reputation masks the “massive social issues that we have to face”, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told London Metropolitan University students on Friday.
The MP for Islington North spoke about Islington’s housing crisis to the university’s Student Union, saying that the council “don’t[sic] have sufficient council housing”.
He spoke of the diversity of housing in the borough, with houses worth “several millions of pounds” being within five minutes walk of people who are “really up against it”.
Corbyn added: “Forty per cent of the children in this area are in relative poverty and that is as high as you’ll find anywhere in the country, although the image of the area is one of middle class aspiration, which is not really a very accurate reflection of the community as a whole.”
Corbyn urged private housing sector for ‘safe and affordable housing’
He called for greater controls on the private housing sector, which accommodates roughly a third of the community, to stop residents being priced out of the borough.
Corbyn urged students “to give what help and support you can to the local community”, saying that “learning what you can give to a community as well as what you can receive” is what higher education is about.
He described how he’d first arrived in London in a truck which dropped him on the Holloway Road and how communities with safe and affordable housing have always been his passion.
The price of Corybn’s own Islington home is not known but the terraced house beside him was put on sale for £975,000 in 2016.
