Me too. Read an article earlier this year of how Thatchers right hand man (Gow i think his name is) during the right to buy scheme made a fortune buying up then privately letting 40+ ex council properties. His millionaire son continues in this business since his father died. Nowt like a bit of profiteering from your government policies. ****s.
With Sid on this one he's putting money back into the council instead of buying at a ridiculously low price it's his home. Same as those people who have lived in the same property for all their adult lives and soon as their kids move out their bullied into moving out of their family home because they have a spare bedroom. Get the economy going build more social affordable housing! As for this ****e about foreigners been blaming them since the year dot the name just changes used to be the Jews, the Irish, the Blacks, the Asians now it's the eastern Europeans what a lot of bollox. Get ****ing Amazon, Starfucks and the rest (not to mention Cameron's et al's families) to pay their taxes and stop treating workers like scum.
Some time in the 80's the phrase social housing become common and from that time some people have tried to paint anybody who lives in a council house as a second class member of the community, either because they could not afford to buy a house or to pay the private rent demanded by other landlords, or that they were just living off the state. The current situation is made worse because of a lack of so called social housing, resulting in long waiting lists in most areas which then means that a lot of the people who would have qualified for a council house don't any more and are forced into the arms of the private rented sector. If not that they are forced into paying over the odds to buy a house. The other thing that boils my piss is when the governmenmt talk about social rents being part paid by the tax payer. This is just not the truth, social rents are set to a minimum level based on a % of the local private rents, however each social landlord must at least break even, so while it is true that the rents in the council/social sector are less than private rents that is a reflection of a shortage of affordable housing meaning buy to let houses are over priced as you can charge higher rents to pay the mortgage used to buy them. The only solution is to build more houses especially in the south where you can not buy a house on the average salary. We need to repeat the building programmes started after the second war and build on a massive scale both private but especially council housing. Do this and the stigma of living in council housing will be taken away, the private landlords will not be able to charge over the odds resulting a more proerty available to buy as the landlords off load then, meaning more afforadable housing AND a lot of work of the building trade which will recycle that money into local communities kick starting a sustanable recovery. The current recovery based on lending more money to house buyers will collapse as the debt cycle for families takes off again producing even higher house prices followed by a crash. So back to the OT and I think it is good that some one has stayed where their roots are and they are proud to belong to their community, no one should be condemed for living in a coucil house out of choice. The ones who should be condemed ar those who have foced the housing market into the private home ownership model we have now while cutting council house building. It would be interesting to know what the salaries are for the boards of the social housing companies like Gentoo are when compared to the salaries which were paid to directors of housing when councils were able to runn their own housing stock. Rant over!
Personally, can't stand the man. But the fact is that council houses aren't means tested. So what's it got to do with anyone else?
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/council-housing-is-not-subsidised/798.thread If anybody wants to join in a debate on council housing here is a link
I don't agree that the answer is to just keep building and building in the South East where the demand is by far the greatest. In my opinion the answer is to create incentives and investments for employment to be transferred from the South East to northern cities like ourselves where the demand for housing is far less. The wealth in this country is far too London centric, and this problem is one that needs addressing.
I don't disagree with you at all anf the reinvestment in the north is another element of rebalancing the economyand if this reduces the demand for housing in the south that will help as well. however the shortage in the south is so great you have silly house prices which then ripple out to the rest of the country meaning all house prices are to high. This also means that once in the north you can not move south (why you would want to is a different question - and before any one asks yes I have lived in the sout Swindon for my sins!) with out cutting your living standards, unless you get a massive hike in salary. This price differential results in people taking the very rational decision that they can not afford to move reducing the opportunities for families in this region. So while it might be counterintuitive it is still right to argue that we will benefit up here if the housing buble in the south is deflated. But we also need the inward investment as well, itis not one or the other but both. I was responding to a question on council housing so kept my response to housing alone.
This. People will always follow the Jobs, provide industry to areas who need it and have ample free housing then those homes will be filled.
