Emergency Motion for Green Party Conference on Squatting

This was passed at the Green Party Conference in Bristol:


Emergency Motion for Green Party Conference on Squatting

This Conference deeply regrets the recent action of the Coalition Government to criminalise squatting.

We note that it will evict up to 20,000 squatters, the majority of whom are decent, honest and self-reliant people.

We note that these people will either be thrown onto the streets, or into jail, or placed in local authority temporary accommodation, all of which carry a cost to society.

We note that in the vast majority of cases the accommodation  they have been squatting will mainly revert to empty status.

We note that there are some 60,000 households classified as homeless in the UK, while some 720,000 houses are currently empty. This is an outrageous, irrational and unintelligent way to run a country.

We note that as well as being a waste of resources, empty houses adversely affect the neighbourhood directly (by causing dampness in adjoining terraced houses) and indirectly through the depressing appearance of boarded up houses.

Therefore we ask our elected representatives to do all in their power to implement our present policies of Empty Property Use Orders as an immediate tactical response to the Government's criminalisation of squatting, and also to press for a Land Value Tax as a strategic response to the problem of empty housing.