| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? 22:28 - Oct 5 with 11787 views | Ryorry |
According to the LB Councillor just interviewed on the BBC1 news?
The whole homelessness/housing situation in the UK seems utterly scandalous - is it really too much to ask to expect us to have an adequate, never mind an effective, ethical housing policy? Those poor people just featured on the news clip - and the tens of thousands of others ...
Hope this is asked on BBCQT, doubt it will be tho. |  |
| |  |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 13:09 - Oct 6 with 2650 views | Clapham_Junction |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 10:19 - Oct 6 by Ryorry |
That's the one, thanks Archer.
Edit: On the 10pm news last night tho, that clip was followed up by an interview with a local Councillor (female from what I guess was Redbridge) who pointed out that their hands as a London Boro Housing Dept were tied by the Govt who she said "have placed a cap on us building social housing". [Post edited 6 Oct 2017 10:26]
|
The cap is not strictly on the number of social housing units, but on the amount councils can borrow to build them, which ultimately is a de facto a cap on building.
Having said that, there is little point in attempting to build more social housing without first getting rid of right to buy. A council in London can build a new property and three years later have to sell it for £105k less than its value. The flat will then soon end up being privately rented out, probably on a room-by-room basis.
Like Archer said earlier in the thread, it's appalling how little media coverage has been given to this. |  | | |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:20 - Oct 6 with 2618 views | Ryorry |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 13:09 - Oct 6 by Clapham_Junction |
The cap is not strictly on the number of social housing units, but on the amount councils can borrow to build them, which ultimately is a de facto a cap on building.
Having said that, there is little point in attempting to build more social housing without first getting rid of right to buy. A council in London can build a new property and three years later have to sell it for £105k less than its value. The flat will then soon end up being privately rented out, probably on a room-by-room basis.
Like Archer said earlier in the thread, it's appalling how little media coverage has been given to this. |
Ah, thanks for further explan + excellent point re RtB.
Tot agree.
And there are one or two on here who want the RtB extended to privately rented property! I confidently predict that if that ever came about, a huge number of private landlords would either switch to short term holiday lets, or sell their properties on the open market before any such law went on the statue book, resulting in a housing crisis of such enormity that it'd be likely to bring down whichever Govt. had adopted that policy. [Post edited 6 Oct 2017 15:41]
| |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:29 - Oct 6 with 2613 views | SpruceMoose |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 22:48 - Oct 5 by factual_blue |
They have capped it because we are all in this together*
*terms and conditions apply |
I've actually copyrighted the phrase "Terms and Conditions Apply".
That'll be $15.99 + VAT please. |  |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:31 - Oct 6 with 2612 views | SpruceMoose |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 10:52 - Oct 6 by GlasgowBlue |
25.000? So roughly 19,000 more than was built in the 13 years of the Blair /Brown government then? |
Whoop whoop! Whataboutery alert! | |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:44 - Oct 6 with 2602 views | GlasgowBlue |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:31 - Oct 6 by SpruceMoose |
Whoop whoop! Whataboutery alert! |
You're late to the party dear boy.Se my post from earlier. |  |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:51 - Oct 6 with 2589 views | SpruceMoose |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:44 - Oct 6 by GlasgowBlue |
You're late to the party dear boy.Se my post from earlier. |
Damn it. Oh well, I will just have to levy my woosh administration fee. $15.99 + VAT please. | |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
| |
Login to get fewer ads
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 17:34 - Oct 6 with 2555 views | No9 |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 11:34 - Oct 6 by BOjK |
I find this kind of stuff pretty pathetic.
Firstly, only a foolish ideologue cares about how we get out of a crisis. We need more houses. If they are private, public or some cunning non-profit mechanism, who cares.
Secondly, it is clear (with hindsight, for sure) that the Labour government didn't manage house building like it should have done while it was in power. But that doesn't matter now. Our young adults can't afford to live in their own properties now. We need to examine the current proposals and work out if they are even enough to stop the situation getting worse (they aren't).
You aren't even looking at the total number of houses being built. Just one small section of them and saying that number is up. Great, but private build has fallen by much more since 2010.
I'm not even blaming your lot for that directly. Clearly the financial crisis massively influenced that.
I'm also not really blaming Cameron's lot in the early days. Governments are reactive. They usually try (with varying degrees of success) to solve problems that are visible and being talked about. NHS waiting lists. School performance. From the mid 80s to around 2010 rising house prices were thought to be A Good Thing - at least in the media. Consequently governments didn't really think through these problems. Nor did they think through the problems associated with a rising population.
So that was then. But this is now. We now all understand how bad things are (many of us knew this for ages, but now *everyone* knows). The Prime Minister and ministers have talked about this is a big problem. And that is their solution? A pitiful number of council properties (perhaps) being built, while no effort is being made to address the wider problems of planning restrictions, land use and local objections being able to delay builds seemingly indefinitely. A broken market, to use the language of both Ed Miliband and Theresa May.
No attempt to solve the bigger problems, instead a fig leaf held up as if it will make any difference at all.
This government is a shambles. Our young haven't got the chances their parents have, and our frail and elderly haven't got the care they need, yet no proposals have appeared that will meaningfully improve things. Instead they insult our neighbours, fret about Brexit and scheme for the top job. |
The tories really should have learned this would lead to problems when they started this simply because there was a precedent in the NL in the late 70's.
A shortage of housing caused prices & rents to become unaffordable so illegally or otherwise people started to take over empty dwellings. Which caused obvious problems worsened when they had nowhere to put those they ejected.
So the started a massive house building programme and another problem arose. Those who had bought on rising prices found themselves in serious negative equity, the governemnt was under pressure again.
The long & short of it was that the government had to finacially compensate those who had lost out.
I don't see any governemnt here especially a tory governemnt doing anythigng which will have millions of out of pocket punters banging on the door |  | | |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 18:39 - Oct 6 with 2538 views | Ryorry |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 17:34 - Oct 6 by No9 |
The tories really should have learned this would lead to problems when they started this simply because there was a precedent in the NL in the late 70's.
A shortage of housing caused prices & rents to become unaffordable so illegally or otherwise people started to take over empty dwellings. Which caused obvious problems worsened when they had nowhere to put those they ejected.
So the started a massive house building programme and another problem arose. Those who had bought on rising prices found themselves in serious negative equity, the governemnt was under pressure again.
The long & short of it was that the government had to finacially compensate those who had lost out.
I don't see any governemnt here especially a tory governemnt doing anythigng which will have millions of out of pocket punters banging on the door |
Homes are for living in; problems start when they're regarded simply as capital or money-making assets. | |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 19:54 - Oct 6 with 2503 views | Clapham_Junction |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 15:20 - Oct 6 by Ryorry |
Ah, thanks for further explan + excellent point re RtB.
Tot agree.
And there are one or two on here who want the RtB extended to privately rented property! I confidently predict that if that ever came about, a huge number of private landlords would either switch to short term holiday lets, or sell their properties on the open market before any such law went on the statue book, resulting in a housing crisis of such enormity that it'd be likely to bring down whichever Govt. had adopted that policy. [Post edited 6 Oct 2017 15:41]
|
I don't think many people are seriously in favour of allowing RtB on private lets; it's more just making a point about the absurdity of RtB in general.
Having said that, I don't think it's actually that stupid an idea - as you said, people need to stop treating housing as assets, and that would be one way to achieve it. Also, if it did somehow actually happen, I can't see that many people taking it up. Many people in private rented accommodation are so because either they don't want to buy where they are or because they can't afford to. The only way I would buy my property off my landlord is if I was offered it at about a third of its market value.
I also think the government does need to do something to discourage private renting as its increasing prevalence is preventing people becoming homeowners as (a) landlords can outcompete wannabe owners and (b) when people inherit a house off their parents, they often rent it out rather than selling it. Both mean that over the long term, property assets are concentrated in an ever shrinking group of hands.
The best policy for me would be to bring in strong rent controls, which would have the double benefit of keeping down living costs for those who choose to or have to rent (and in turn also save the government loads of money on housing benefit), and also possibly bursting the property bubble (both through reduced competition from BTL merchants and potentially quite a lot of landlords choosing to leave the market as they can no longer cover the mortgage cost, putting a large number of dwellings on the market at the same time) which would allow those who want to buy to do so (I only managed to buy in 2009 due to the slump in house prices the year before; the house I bought in Ipswich then for £83k has recently sold again for over £160k). [Post edited 6 Oct 2017 19:57]
| | | |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:08 - Oct 6 with 2489 views | Ryorry |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 19:54 - Oct 6 by Clapham_Junction |
I don't think many people are seriously in favour of allowing RtB on private lets; it's more just making a point about the absurdity of RtB in general.
Having said that, I don't think it's actually that stupid an idea - as you said, people need to stop treating housing as assets, and that would be one way to achieve it. Also, if it did somehow actually happen, I can't see that many people taking it up. Many people in private rented accommodation are so because either they don't want to buy where they are or because they can't afford to. The only way I would buy my property off my landlord is if I was offered it at about a third of its market value.
I also think the government does need to do something to discourage private renting as its increasing prevalence is preventing people becoming homeowners as (a) landlords can outcompete wannabe owners and (b) when people inherit a house off their parents, they often rent it out rather than selling it. Both mean that over the long term, property assets are concentrated in an ever shrinking group of hands.
The best policy for me would be to bring in strong rent controls, which would have the double benefit of keeping down living costs for those who choose to or have to rent (and in turn also save the government loads of money on housing benefit), and also possibly bursting the property bubble (both through reduced competition from BTL merchants and potentially quite a lot of landlords choosing to leave the market as they can no longer cover the mortgage cost, putting a large number of dwellings on the market at the same time) which would allow those who want to buy to do so (I only managed to buy in 2009 due to the slump in house prices the year before; the house I bought in Ipswich then for £83k has recently sold again for over £160k). [Post edited 6 Oct 2017 19:57]
|
Sorry CJ but I can't read any further than your first 2 paras.
People like myself who let out the little annexe attached to my house (part of the physical structure, formerly a mini-barn with hayloft, now a 1 up 1 down s-c flat let to a single man who works locally, for £550pcm incl free heating and broadband) - would immediately cease long-term lets if your proposal were adopted, and go for the holiday market instead. I'm certain that thousands of others in similar situations would do the same. It would cause havoc and immediately damage the very people you're suggesting it would help. No landlord in their right mind would be willing to run the risk that a private tenant might take RtB up. | |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:14 - Oct 6 with 2482 views | Clapham_Junction |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:08 - Oct 6 by Ryorry |
Sorry CJ but I can't read any further than your first 2 paras.
People like myself who let out the little annexe attached to my house (part of the physical structure, formerly a mini-barn with hayloft, now a 1 up 1 down s-c flat let to a single man who works locally, for £550pcm incl free heating and broadband) - would immediately cease long-term lets if your proposal were adopted, and go for the holiday market instead. I'm certain that thousands of others in similar situations would do the same. It would cause havoc and immediately damage the very people you're suggesting it would help. No landlord in their right mind would be willing to run the risk that a private tenant might take RtB up. |
Obviously there would need to be exceptions if something like that ever happened, and something that's part of your own property would be an obvious one. | | | |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:17 - Oct 6 with 2474 views | Ryorry |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:14 - Oct 6 by Clapham_Junction |
Obviously there would need to be exceptions if something like that ever happened, and something that's part of your own property would be an obvious one. |
It's classed as an independent property and has its own Council Tax banding. It's not as simple as you're making out. | |
| |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:27 - Oct 6 with 2462 views | Clapham_Junction |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:17 - Oct 6 by Ryorry |
It's classed as an independent property and has its own Council Tax banding. It's not as simple as you're making out. |
To be fair, I don't think I tried to make it out as being simple - I was just throwing the idea out there that it might not be as absurd an idea as first thought, not going into any detail on the specifics. Sorry if you took it personally. | | | |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:58 - Oct 6 with 2438 views | Ryorry |
| *Why* has the Govt. capped the building of new council housing?? on 20:27 - Oct 6 by Clapham_Junction |
To be fair, I don't think I tried to make it out as being simple - I was just throwing the idea out there that it might not be as absurd an idea as first thought, not going into any detail on the specifics. Sorry if you took it personally. |
The point is that yes, I did see it from my own pov - as would any other landlord with half a brain! Add us all together & you'd have a massive problem which makes the current crisis look small-scale.
I've been a member of the Resident Landlords Assn for 2.5 years and have seen how things have gone with new tax laws etc - people are already getting out to some extent, so current measures re btl are working but I agree too slow and probably not enough. But huge care is needed, and RtB really isn't the way to go.
Btw I wouldn't mind selling to my current tenant at all, as he's a model one & lovely guy who wouldn't want to change anything. The issue of course is that he would have the right to sell on in due course, and that could be a massive problem for me, not least for my health, if somebody wanted eg to bring in propane gas cooking/heating. | |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
