Love Thy Neighbour! - Street Quotas Will Force IntegrationNEW Labour are linking improvements in housing to 'ethnic street quotas' in an effort to force integration in areas such as Burnley Wood and Daneshouse.It's a radical new plan designed to deal with the polarisation of communities within Burnley and to prevent further trouble in future. The move comes in the wake of the Cantle Report into the disturbances in the summer, which revealed that communities were living "parallel lives". The report found "when physical separation of housing is compounded by a complete lack of contact through education, through social and cultural networks, through any other contact at all, then it does become a complete and absolute separation, parallel lives, no contact with one community to another." New Labour believe that street quotas will overcome this problem. In Burnley Wood and Daneshouse, Government grants will be made available for the renovation, or the demolishing and rebuilding of homes. Once complete, these will be let on a 50/50 basis between white Burnley folk and the ethnic community. Alternate houses for either community will ensure complete and absolute integration. Grants for housing would be on condition of the establishment of these racially-mixed estates. A spokeswoman at Burnley Housing Department described herself as "Gobsmacked" when told of the proposals, and believed them to be "unworkable".
In Burnley Wood the idea was greeted with horror. The 'enforcement' side of this integration is going to pose the most problems. Residents could be cajoled by the threat of losing benefits or being made homeless, but it's how the media will portray this 'compulsion to move', that could make or break the policy. No problem with the white families refusing to move from Burnley Wood - they would be branded ignorant bigots. The problem will come when that little Asian family from Daneshouse pleads not to go to Burnley Wood for "fear of racist attacks." Try and compel them and every civil rights group in the country will be camped on the Town Hall steps, calling Burnley's Labour councillors, for so long the champions of the ethnic minorities, 'nazis' and 'fascists'.
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