Paul Afshar
I grew up in a damp cellar and now I’ve got an unsellable flat with a rising mortgage. But through the biggest housing campaign in a generation, we got this government to pay up £10bn to make homes safe.

    Paul Afshar
    I'm fighting for better homes for all.

    My bedroom was a damp cellar and now I have an unsellable flat with cladding. I know first hand that bad housing is the difference between being good at school or not, being healthy or ill, and being happy at home.

    I thought I'd left those things behind, but this Government has priced families out, let them down and all but forgotten hard working people. They don't care about the homes they live in.

    All my life I've stood on the side of what's right. And while our cladding battles aren't over, we've shown that when we act together, we can win.
    Paul Afshar BBC cladding 2

    Housing & cladding

    Securing £billions to make homes safe

    We’ve built a campaign that’s secured £10bn from the Government to make homes safe up and down the country.

    Better homes

    We’re facing high rents, dangerous high rises, soaring mortgage rates and fewer affordable homes.  I’m fighting to make sure developers with deep pockets put people before profit. 

    Paul Afshar James Murray business

    Standing up for small businesses

    Justice for small businesses

    I’ve worked to make sure small businesses get a fairer deal.

    Opportunities for working class kids

    I work with organisations to get more working class young adults into established companies.

    Paul Afshar small business

    Cost of living

    Cost of living

    When we’re cooking warm meals and providing warm places for those who afford can’t either, something’s gone wrong.  This Government has failed us, and now we need them out.

    Supporting nurses and doctors

    I live with a doctor – nurses and people like him shouldn’t have to rely on food banks – we need to better protect the people who keep our NHS running.

    Our rights

    Our services

    Better buses

    I’m campaigning to get better buses in underserved areas.

    Schools and education

    We need more money for teachers and to rebuild our school infrastructure.

    Fighting for people like us

    Paul Reza Afshar

    About Paul

    A national campaigner with a proven track record of delivering locally

    I’ve seen how our communities have been ignored by national and regional Governments, I got the Tories to pay attention and pay up £10bn to make clad homes safe and I’m going use my profile to bring focus and funding back to our towns and villages.

    Housing campaigner

    Campaigning for better buses

    Board Member

    Volunteer

    Software company Director

    Fighting for rights

    Housing campaigner

    Software company Director

    Board Member

    Small business campaigner

    Fighting for better buses

    Volunteer

    Paul Afshar

    Paul's story

    I grew up tough times, but had the benefit of a mum and dad who both believed in a better life.

    I grew up when times were hard and money harder to come by.  But my parents both taught me to work hard and strive to take care of those around us. 

    Mum raised us as a single parent and had to put food back at the supermarket checkout. Dad, who fled another country and sought refuge in the UK, worked damn hard to scrape every penny he had just to get us new school uniforms.

    I thought we’d left those dark days behind in the 1990s but unfortunately this government has started to make history repeat itself. 

    I’ve listened to people up and down the country – from Leeds to Lincoln, Selby to St Andrews about the housing crisis they face. I’m stuck in an unsellable flat with flammable cladding. Many have it much, much worse. 

    Our futures have been put on hold because we can’t afford to live in the places we want, or  fix our broken houses.

    If our campaign has taught me one thing – it’s that we stop those with deep pockets walking over us by standing up and organising together. 

    With Ritu Saha and Giles Grover (End Our Cladding Scandal – EOCS) we’ve started a national campaign to push the Government into making sure that hard-working families up and down the country didn’t have to pay for the mistakes of dodgy developers.

    Three years later, and we’ve got the Tories to U-turn, secured £10 billion in funding from Government for cladding victims, and made sure we won’t be ignored.

    The Government need to remember who they serve. They don’t represent hard-working people like my mum and dad. They’ve taken them for granted.

    So many people talk to me about how their dreams of a better future for their children have been dashed, or how they can’t even afford to get on the housing ladder. If home is where the heart is, this Government has ripped that heart right out of Britain. 

    Through the cladding campaign we’ve built a movement of thousands of homeowners up and down the country, in London, in Yorkshire, in Lancashire and Scotland.

    We’ve shown that people power works. That when we come together and fight for the things that matter, we can win.