As Ford Eco-Town is rejected: where do we go from here?

CAMPAIGNERS were overjoyed following the Government's announcement that Ford Eco-Town will not be built, but for many of the 1,600-plus families on Arun's housing waiting list, the reaction may well be altogether different.

Their hope of moving into one of the 5,000 environmentally-friendly homes was dashed when Ford was left out of the first wave of four Eco-Towns revealed last Thursday.

Living in a cramped, two-bedroom housing association maisonette, Alison and Mark Trist and their three children symbolise the housing crisis facing Arun district, which, Eco-Town or not, refuses to go away.

Over the past two years they have, unsuccessful, applied for more than 40 three-bedroom council houses which have become available. Alison and Mark sleep in a sofa-bed in their living room, their 18-month-old twin daughter Chloe and son Elliot share one bedroom and their 13-year-old daughter Megan has the second bedroom at the property in Bourne Court, Wick.

"Unsuitable accommodation"

Even their housing association admits the accommodation is "unsuitable", but given that the typical length of wait on Arun's housing list is four years for the category of families like the Trists, it could be another two years before they have just one extra bedroom. The family says it desperately needs four bedrooms, but is not even allowed to bid for larger homes.

"The council is working on the theory that our daughter will leave home at 16, but she is a bright girl, and very capable of going to university, so she will be living with us until she is in her early 20s and not moving out at all.

"Our baby twins are mixed sex, so they should have a bedroom each, but we are all stuck in a two-bedroom maisonette.