By Sue Read

TALKING houses at last week’s meeting of Crediton Town Council, the town Mayor, Cllr Frank Letch, reported on the housing situation with Mid Devon District Council, of which he is a member.

He said the district had put forward to the government to abolish Right to Buy because if a tenant who buys a council house is offered a healthy discount, the district council only gets 30 per cent of the money.

So far this financial year the district council had sold 17 houses which, in theory, should pay for new homes, but, said Cllr Letch, “it doesn’t work like that.”

Cllr Letch added that the district council “had done rather well” in a survey of nine or 10 similarly rural councils.

The district council had been looking at the refugee status, saying last year that it would home five families.

So far two have been homed, negotiations were going on with someone in Crediton for a third family and so the district council was looking for a fourth.

As for the homeless man living beside the War Memorial on Union Road, Cllr Letch reported that the man had been offered help but had turned it down.