Cambridge Housing Associations and councillors have met Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister John Healey and local MP Daniel Zeichner to highlight their opposition to the housing bill which they say will decimate Cambridge’s communities.

The government’s housing bill will compel housing associations to sell off their homes, force Cambridge city council to sell their council houses to pay for this and hike up rents for tenants with household incomes of £30,000.

Cambridge city council estimates that the Bill will result directly in the loss of a quarter of the city’s council housing stock.

Mr Zeichner said: “More and more Cambridge people will find themselves in expensive, insecure privately rented homes. House prices will continue to rise and local councils will be unable to house people in need. 

The pay to stay policy is an ideological attack designed to wage war on social housing penalising those who get on, the role models and backbone of local communities.”