Stephen Pound
Main Page: Stephen Pound (Labour - Ealing North)
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
In the early 1990s, when the Government Chief Whip was a most distinguished Housing Minister and I was an insignificant housing officer, the then Government introduced with great fanfare something called LOTS—living over the shop—which had certain similarities to what we have heard about today. It was an unmitigated disaster. There are good reasons why people do not want to live above undertakers, butchers and off-licences. I urge the Minister to look at some of the previous attempts to resolve this and to realise that it is not as simple as it looks.
Mr Foster
The hon. Gentleman could never be described, even back in the ’90s, as insignificant. We have indeed looked at all previous attempts to make use of spaces above shops, and all of them have failed, which is why we have now put direct funding in, through our Portas team pilot areas, to look at innovative new ways of dealing with this, and not least, as he will understand, the issue of security.