Greens and Shelter get it all wrong on housing in london ..

[durruti02]

I am getting more and more sick of reading Anthony Sampson from Shelter and now apparrently the London Greens, arguing that building social housing is the answer to the lack of social housing in london

.. are they really that blind / stupid that they don't realise that hundreds of thousends of housing units, both private and social housing ( RSL/HA) ) have been added to london over the last 10-15 years, and that at the same time tens of thousends of council units have been sold

.. and that fundamentally housing is about demand NOT supply and fundamentally that is about society and the economy.

At times i think Sampson is simply a spokesman for the House Builders Fed or at least new labour .. but surely the greens should be a bit more savvy??

at least the lib dems seem to be saying some interesting stuff including demanding empty property is socialised ..

 

[Matt S]

durruti,

Not sure why you're going off on one on the Greens - a press release you've seen or something?

I don't think anyone in the Green Party has ever argued that the building of more social housing on its own is going to solve anything. I spent just a couple of minutes going through our housing policy (didn't even get halfway through it), and I found stuff like this:

"HO102 The inadequate and inequitable provision of housing in this country today is the result of inequalities in access to resources, particularly land, the inability of the free market to meet diverse housing needs and a lack of investment in public housing spanning over two decades. To eradicate these inequalities it is essential to bring housing policies under local participatory democratic control.

HO103 The Green Party seeks a balanced mix of housing tenures, to meet the diverse needs of the community. These include individual and shared home ownership, leasehold, and others. Disincentives to the speculative ownership of housing will be introduced, including higher rates of Council Tax for unoccupied properties and second homes.

HO108 The increase in homelessness is partly the result of ineffective housing policy and lack of investment in housing over the last twenty years. Policies are urgently needed to change the homelessness legislation, to maximise the use of empty property, and to increase the security of anyone occupying a property as their home. Reform of the housing benefit system would ensure that late payments cannot cause homelessness and stop landlords discriminating against those on benefit.

HO410 Local authorities should be allowed to build or buy houses where there is a demand for social housing. Receipts from any sales of council housing will be made available to fund further housing and related development. Local authorities will be empowered to buy properties on the open market, to meet housing need and avoid building on green field sites.

HO905 Local authorities will draw up registers of empty property in their areas and strategies for its use. Homeless people will be consulted on policies for housing provision. Local authorities will advise and assist groups of homeless persons to make proposals about the use of empty property, and to put those proposals into effect.

HO906 Local authorities will be empowered to make or guarantee loans to groups of homeless persons organising schemes to occupy empty property."

I can also tell you from personal experience that Green councillors around the country are doing loads of stuff on empty property issues. So...I'm not sure what the issue is?

Unless you're arguing that there shouldn't be any proportion of social housing built in new developments in which case...well...we disagree!

Unfortunately I am off for a few days now, so am not going to be able to come back on this...but thought I would just give a sprinkling of our actual policy proposals...

Matt

P.S. And it's not even as if these policies are hidden away. Our key policy proposal on housing, front and centre on the website, reads:

"The single biggest financial hurdle for many of us in this country is the cost of getting a roof over our heads. Quickly followed by keeping it there.

Every year, developers throw up flats and homes in their thousands for those who are well off when what we really need is more good quality housing that ordinary people can afford - particularly those with young families. Affordability needs to be addressed directly; simply increasing the supply just ruins the environment without helping those families.

The Green Party will use tough planning rules to make sure developers include truly affordable housing – for rent not just one-off sales – in all new developments. Already, in Oxford, persistent work by Green councillors has led to an increase in the proportion of affordable housing in new developments from 20 to 50%.

Considering that most government proposals also involve building on green or brownfield sites, sometimes even on flood plains, it’s astonishing that more isn’t being done to use the country’s stock of 700,000 empty homes and the many more that are either underused, in poor condition or in places of low economic activity.

So before the Green Party built any new homes, we would first arrange funding to re-build and repair these houses, buy existing houses for social use and make sure empty ones were made available for use as homes."

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies/affordable-homes.html

 

[audiotech]

A 'smear' perhaps?

 

[Dan U]

have you read what Boris has announced today?

50,000 more units of social housing. but focusing on family homes as much as flats. buying empty buildings for social housing etc.

 

[belboid]

well, Boris' ideas of social housing were about houses for families earning about 50k! if you earned less than that - tough titty.

durruti's comment just seems bizarre to me. the 'social' housing that has been built has been very limited and largely available to a similar bunch of (not that) low earners. it is blatantly obvious that what is required is a hell of a lot more social housing, and a hell of a lot less private housing. it's about the balance of such building, not whether it happens at all.

the only thing i can conclude from d's comments is that he wants to stop any migration into london (whether from the rest of the uk or anywhere else). which is a straightforwardly nonsensical policy that will never, and should never, happen. how would anyone propose stopping people moving? a ring of steel around the metropolis? a new border guard?

(which isn't to say sampson is a bit of a twat, to say the least)

 

[brasicritique]

I am getting more and more sick of reading Anthony Sampson from Shelter and now apparrently the London Greens, arguing that building social housing is the answer to the lack of social housing in london

.. are they really that blind / stupid that they don't realise that hundreds of thousends of housing units, both private and social housing ( RSL/HA) ) have been added to london over the last 10-15 years, and that at the same time tens of thousends of council units have been sold

.. and that fundamentally housing is about demand NOT supply and fundamentally that is about society and the economy.

At times i think Sampson is simply a spokesman for the House Builders Fed or at least new labour .. but surely the greens should be a bit more savvy??

at least the lib dems seem to be saying some interesting stuff including demanding empty property is socialised ..

actaully the majority on new housing that has been built in london has been for Key workers ie teachers doctors nurses some of wjhom hardly come from poor backgrounds some whom have the right to buy under part rent part buy schemes however typical leftwingliberal thought has it that the greedy working class are responsible for the shortage of housing - surely the real question is why is it that the whole issue of subserdised housing for middle and upper class england has gone unreported? Gaurdian reading flifloping hypocrasy perhaps? Never There has been next to no new housing built for non key workers-btw there is a difference between affordable housing social housing council housing and hosuing for key workers end of story i think it is good that the greens are at least trying to go beyond crunchy conservatism while the left are still blaming the people they should be helping get hosuing for the lack of housing

 

[marty21]

actaully the majority on new housing that has been built in london has been for Key workers ie teachers doctors nurses some of wjhom hardly come from poor backgrounds some whom have the right to buy under part rent part buy schemes however typical leftwingliberal thought has it that the greedy working class are responsible for the shortage of housing - surely the real question is why is it that the whole issue of subserdised housing for middle and upper class england has gone unreported? Gaurdian reading flifloping hypocrasy perhaps? Never There has been next to no new housing built for non key workers-btw there is a difference between affordable housing social housing council housing and hosuing for key workers end of story i think it is good that the greens are at least trying to go beyond crunchy conservatism while the left are still blaming the people they should be helping get hosuing for the lack of housing

that's not true, and i base that on working for a large housing associations in london for most of the last 12 years or so, there are more key workers units being built, but i'd say the majority of social housing built remains rented units.

key worker accommodation ime, is either rented at slightly below marker rents, or shared ownership or shared equity, and shared ownership ain't that great a deal imo, it's at the share of the equity based on market levels, they then rent the other share at a higher rent than social rent levels

 

[brasicritique]

that's not true, and i base that on working for a large housing associations in london for most of the last 12 years or so, there are more key workers units being built, but i'd say the majority of social housing built remains rented units.
key worker accommodation ime, is either rented at slightly below marker rents, or shared ownership or shared equity, and shared ownership ain't that great a deal imo, it's at the share of the equity based on market levels, they then rent the other share at a higher rent than social rent levels

well what i said evidently is true if one looks at your post - if there was all this social housing then people would not be taking the far rights pov on the housing issue would they

there is a difference betwwen housing for key workers social houisng affordable housing and council housing

great deals or not aside part rent part buy gives you the right to buy so if your a teacher or doctor or police - you can buy your place and these occupations are lower to upper middleclass so in effect the government has been dispraportionately funding housing for middle england at the expense of council hosuing or vast amounts of mixed social housing and the shortage in council housing is one of the main reasons imo that people vote bnp

lets recap middle/professional england get subserdised housing while on these very boards we have supposdely left wing liberals arguing a view that blame s working classess and the right to buy for the lack of housing while those lower down the social scale figt over crumbs which reuslts in people then blaming immigrants for taking all the housing and then vote bnp

Newshamebores great unreported housing swindle subsedising housing for middle england with the effect of fanning the flames of the far right

terifc

 

[marty21]

well what i said evidently is true if one looks at your post - if there was all this social housing then people would not be taking the far rights pov on the housing issue would they

there is a difference betwwen housing for key workers social houisng affordable housing and council housing

great deals or not aside part rent part buy gives you the right to buy so if your a teacher or doctor or police - you can buy your place and these occupations are lower to upper middleclass so in effect the government has been dispraportionately funding housing for middle england at the expense of council hosuing or vast amounts of mixed social housing and the shortage in council housing is one of the main reasons imo that people vote bnp

lets recap middle/professional england get subserdised housing while on these very boards we have supposdely left wing liberals arguing a view that blame s working classess and the right to buy for the lack of housing while those lower down the social scale figt over crumbs which reuslts in people then blaming immigrants for taking all the housing and then vote bnp

Newshamebores great unreported housing swindle subsedising housing for middle england with the effect of fanning the flames of the far right

terifc

shared ownership is not rtb, it's funded as a shared ownership, the whole point of it is that people can "staircase" and buy further shares until they do own it

pointless arguing over whether rtb in the past was good or bad imo, what's done is done, you can't undo it

that said, rtb did reduce the stock of social housing, and housing associations who took over the provision of new social housing in the early 90s, just can't build enough to meet the demand, there are some local authorities who have started small build schemes, but there needs to be a lot more social house build than is currently being done, and the recession will restrict the ability of either housing associations or local authorities to build more, or the government in it's attempt to buy their way out of recession could fund a large social housing development programme

and as i said shared ownership isn't subsidised housing, since ultimately they buy at a market rate

 

[durruti02]

durruti,

Not sure why you're going off on one on the Greens - a press release you've seen or something?

I don't think anyone in the Green Party has ever argued that the building of more social housing on its own is going to solve anything. I spent just a couple of minutes going through our housing policy (didn't even get halfway through it), and I found stuff like this:

"HO102 The inadequate and inequitable provision of housing in this country today is the result of inequalities in access to resources, particularly land, the inability of the free market to meet diverse housing needs and a lack of investment in public housing spanning over two decades. To eradicate these inequalities it is essential to bring housing policies under local participatory democratic control.

HO103 The Green Party seeks a balanced mix of housing tenures, to meet the diverse needs of the community. These include individual and shared home ownership, leasehold, and others. Disincentives to the speculative ownership of housing will be introduced, including higher rates of Council Tax for unoccupied properties and second homes.

HO108 The increase in homelessness is partly the result of ineffective housing policy and lack of investment in housing over the last twenty years. Policies are urgently needed to change the homelessness legislation, to maximise the use of empty property, and to increase the security of anyone occupying a property as their home. Reform of the housing benefit system would ensure that late payments cannot cause homelessness and stop landlords discriminating against those on benefit.

HO410 Local authorities should be allowed to build or buy houses where there is a demand for social housing. Receipts from any sales of council housing will be made available to fund further housing and related development. Local authorities will be empowered to buy properties on the open market, to meet housing need and avoid building on green field sites.

HO905 Local authorities will draw up registers of empty property in their areas and strategies for its use. Homeless people will be consulted on policies for housing provision. Local authorities will advise and assist groups of homeless persons to make proposals about the use of empty property, and to put those proposals into effect.

HO906 Local authorities will be empowered to make or guarantee loans to groups of homeless persons organising schemes to occupy empty property."

I can also tell you from personal experience that Green councillors around the country are doing loads of stuff on empty property issues. So...I'm not sure what the issue is?

Unless you're arguing that there shouldn't be any proportion of social housing built in new developments in which case...well...we disagree!

Unfortunately I am off for a few days now, so am not going to be able to come back on this...but thought I would just give a sprinkling of our actual policy proposals...

Matt

P.S. And it's not even as if these policies are hidden away. Our key policy proposal on housing, front and centre on the website, reads:

"The single biggest financial hurdle for many of us in this country is the cost of getting a roof over our heads. Quickly followed by keeping it there.

Every year, developers throw up flats and homes in their thousands for those who are well off when what we really need is more good quality housing that ordinary people can afford - particularly those with young families. Affordability needs to be addressed directly; simply increasing the supply just ruins the environment without helping those families.

The Green Party will use tough planning rules to make sure developers include truly affordable housing – for rent not just one-off sales – in all new developments. Already, in Oxford, persistent work by Green councillors has led to an increase in the proportion of affordable housing in new developments from 20 to 50%.

Considering that most government proposals also involve building on green or brownfield sites, sometimes even on flood plains, it’s astonishing that more isn’t being done to use the country’s stock of 700,000 empty homes and the many more that are either underused, in poor condition or in places of low economic activity.

So before the Green Party built any new homes, we would first arrange funding to re-build and repair these houses, buy existing houses for social use and make sure empty ones were made available for use as homes."

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies/affordable-homes.html

hi matt yes that is all good stuff and that is why it is depressing that in london JJ always gets dragged into battles over %'s instead of actually asking why we need ANY new housing in the first place .. and the answer to that is that the market is demanding new housing to house it's docklands clerks .. to repeat hundreds of thousends of units have been built in the last 20 years yet inequality has INCREASED .. the greens should be confronting that whole process .. allowing the market to continue demanding massive increases in housing ( until recently! lol) means it really makes no differrence if there is 20 or 30% rented

btw did you read my OP or just the headline maybe have a look at it again

of course boris sampson and jj have been overtaken by events .. currently NO housing is or will be built and indeed there will be tens of thousends of empties

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=7780

 

[durruti02]

well, Boris' ideas of social housing were about houses for families earning about 50k! if you earned less than that - tough titty.

durruti's comment just seems bizarre to me. the 'social' housing that has been built has been very limited and largely available to a similar bunch of (not that) low earners. it is blatantly obvious that what is required is a hell of a lot more social housing, and a hell of a lot less private housing. it's about the balance of such building, not whether it happens at all.

the only thing i can conclude from d's comments is that he wants to stop any migration into london (whether from the rest of the uk or anywhere else). which is a straightforwardly nonsensical policy that will never, and should never, happen. how would anyone propose stopping people moving? a ring of steel around the metropolis? a new border guard?

(which isn't to say sampson is a bit of a twat, to say the least)

extraordinary . yet again you ACCEPT the rule of capital .. belboid my friend hundreds of thousends of housing units have ben built in london of the last decades .. to feed capital .. yet it makes 'housing / homeless ness / etc etc NO better .. and they would NOT have built social housing .. the demand was for private housing for yuppies

yet again you idiotically ( sorry mate but how many times do we revisit the issue of supply versus demand????? .. read the OP again .. it is NOT supply that is the issue but demand ) suggest ( insultingly btw) i want to build walls and fences .. as with immigration the massive influx / increase in population of london is NOT progressive NOT dictated by w/c organisations but dictated by a finance capital frenzy .. it is not a POSITIVE development but simply part of capitalism at its worst .. the issues of housing will be sorted NOT by pathetically demanding extra 5% social rented but by confronting the whole situation .. i do not expect that from sampson but i do ( maybe wrongly) from the greens

shelter and JJ end up tail ending this process instead of saying WTF is going on!! if capital had carried on growing when would they say enough is enough

if this is all too theoretical at the very least they/we should be demanding 100% social housing and a stop on private builds ..

and of course as i note above this is all irrelevent now as demand and building is grinding to a halt

 

[belboid]

and of course as i note above this is all irrelevent now as demand and building is grinding to a halt

the only sensible thing you've said.

yes, i did read it all d, it was all shite. sorry, but that's how it is. 'accepting the rule of capital' - rubbish.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What is "social housing"?
To me "social housing" is good old-fashioned "council housing", secure tenancies with affordable rents. "Social housing" built by HAs tend to charge market(ish) rents and are not necessarily "affordable" in urban areas.
It's all very well providing housing for "key workers" such as teachers, coppers and the emergency services, but what about those who do unskilled work, and earn around the minimum hourly rate or just above? Seems to me that they're going to continue to be fucked over if "social housing" development continues along it's established lines.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I am getting more and more sick of reading Anthony Sampson from Shelter and now apparrently the London Greens, arguing that building social housing is the answer to the lack of social housing in london

.. are they really that blind / stupid that they don't realise that hundreds of thousends of housing units, both private and social housing ( RSL/HA) ) have been added to london over the last 10-15 years, and that at the same time tens of thousends of council units have been sold

.. and that fundamentally housing is about demand NOT supply and fundamentally that is about society and the economy.

Availability of decent "social housing" is about "supply and demand". In London (and, I suspect, many other locations, both urban and rural) the development of social housing by HAs has barely REPLACED housing lost to "Right to Buy", so the NET gain in terms of housing units has been small. There's a massive demand for social housing, and a very limited supply of it.

At times i think Sampson is simply a spokesman for the House Builders Fed or at least new labour .. but surely the greens should be a bit more savvy??

at least the lib dems seem to be saying some interesting stuff including demanding empty property is socialised ..

Probably won't happen until and unless we see similar social disorder over housing to the late 1940s, though.

 

[belboid]

if this is all too theoretical at the very least they/we should be demanding 100% social housing and a stop on private builds

nonw of it is too theoretical, the problem is it's fart too simplistic. the problem is demand you say, so you try to deal with it by supply, good old thatcherite methodology. it doesn't take a genius to work out what would happen if you could implement this scheme (tho your 'very least' is actually fine, as long as we build enough social housing). A total stop on all builds, all that would happen is that prices would rocket, for purchases and for rents, and who would that benefit? Just a slightly different section of capital, the bleeding rentier class, you know>? The ones who are most to blame for the current mess. In no way is that at all 'progressive'.

Build lots more genuinely social housing, council take over of empty properties, confiscate all the properties run by slum landlords. That would be a decent start.

 

[durruti02]

do you live in londonbelboid? i don't believe so .. so please then tell me where these 20000, 50000, or more, if the finance capital orgy had continued, units were going to actually go, where they were to be built? i'll tell you .. by massive destruction of old w/c communities, by the destruction of the Lea Valley, by the destruction of the thames gateway marshes, in bleak suburban thamesmeads in fucking Erith, in estaes with 20 year shelf lives, or in 20 story blocks in Dalston

.. london has been TOTALLY and utterly overheated and my criticism is not that the Greens were supporting MORE social housing but that they did not confronting this process as a whole ( or at least their criticisms have not reached the media )

and yes belboid i say again by NOT confronting this process you accept the rule of capital .. back in the 7ts people talked about planning .. the discussion of housing in london entirely ignores whether this process is good for london and its communities .. even KL gave up on sustainable employment and sold out to finace capital .. i would have liked to see the Greens confront that the engine of london has been fiannce capital and that feeding it does none of us any good .. and of course most of us have been saying it would not last for many years

 

[Badgers]

have you read what Boris has announced today?

50,000 more units of social housing. but focusing on family homes as much as flats. buying empty buildings for social housing etc.

Did a bit of work on this last week and it getting a whole lot better.

 

[belboid]

do you live in londonbelboid? i don't believe so

if this thread is only to be commented on by londoners, you should have put it in the london forum. as it is, it's not exactly difficult to follow what's h=going on down there re housing, it does get in the papers you know, and on various websites that discuss regen issues (which, as you know, is what i have worked in for several years).

your proposal just supports a slightly different section of finance capital, and would also do absolutely nothing to benefit most londoners. i'm all for confronting finance capital, but your proposal does nothing to do so.

 

[durruti02]

if this thread is only to be commented on by londoners, you should have put it in the london forum. as it is, it's not exactly difficult to follow what's h=going on down there re housing, it does get in the papers you know, and on various websites that discuss regen issues (which, as you know, is what i have worked in for several years).

your proposal just supports a slightly different section of finance capital, and would also do absolutely nothing to benefit most londoners. i'm all for confronting finance capital, but your proposal does nothing to do so.

1) this threads is NOT just for londoners but i would expect posters to know what they are talking about ..clearly, in this instance, you do not, as you do not seem to realise HOW many flats, private AND social rented have actually been built in the last decades with NO change in homlessness, and seem happy to go along with the build build build line with no understanding of what that means on the ground here in london

you say you work in regen? no i did not know ..in london most of us regard that as pretty gutter .. what do you mean by regen?

2) how on earth does a propsal of arguing for sustainable development, as on paper the green do, support ANY section of finance capital that makes no sense at all ..

to repeat it can not be the role of the alt/left to be pushed into cheerleading for the infrastructure for finance capital .. YES we on the ground must demand what our communities need but we also need to go beyond that

 

[marty21]

1
you say you work in regen? no i did not know ..in london most of us regard that as pretty gutter .. what do you mean by regen?

presumably you are aware that regen also includes social housing build

 

[durruti02]

presumably you are aware that regen also includes social housing build

hi marty yes i am but it seems to be used more as a covert privatisation/land grab .. did you see the letter in the gazette from HI this week? btw you are in clapton? one of the most outrageous bits there was decanting and demolishing a nice council block ( nothing wrong with it) at the botttom of southwold road, on millfields by the river, then rebuilding as a private block .. this regen story is repeated over and over .. the woodberry down regen is particuarly disgusting

there are two very important political im/explicits in regen

1) that it is only possible with private sector build for financing ( bullshit .. IF the govt wanted to fund public housing it could)

2) that mixed tenure/class areas are 'better' .. this is key to Nu Labour .. it is a bullshit excuse for land grabs .. e.g. hackney has been mixed class for decades and the alienation of w/c youth is absolute

 

[durruti02]

"The number of empty homes in England is increasing because of the downturn in the housing market and a sharp rise in repossessions, a charity has warned.

The Empty Homes Agency is urging the public to report homes left vacant for long periods so it can inform councils, which can bring them back into use.

Councils have the power to take empty houses over and rent them out.

David Ireland, the charity's chief executive, said: "At the very time people need more homes, record numbers are falling empty.

"There are now enough vacant homes in England to house almost two million people, yet far more attention is paid to building new ones." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7744342.stm

 

[marty21]

hi marty yes i am but it seems to be used more as a covert privatisation/land grab .. did you see the letter in the gazette from HI this week? btw you are in clapton? one of the most outrageous bits there was decanting and demolishing a nice council block ( nothing wrong with it) at the botttom of southwold road, on millfields by the river, then rebuilding as a private block .. this regen story is repeated over and over .. the woodberry down regen is particuarly disgusting

didn't get the gazette this week, there's plenty of regen in clapton which is ill thought out tbh, they want to redevelop the tram depot buildings on upper clapton road, which are historical industrial buildings, and build a tower block there, I have written to the mp and to the planning dept about this, the building is a bit run down, but has a load of local businesses operating out of it, a second hand jag place for one love seeing those old jags, also a garage, and various small manufacturers, the owners have basically let it run down in the hope that they could make a packet demolishing it - as they did (i think they are the same owners) with the old synagogue on lea bridge road, which is now just a pile of bricks

that said, they has been a large development of mixed tenure housing in the streets off southwold road - mixture of social housing and private housing, including the james latham timber land development, it has improved the look of the area, and a lot of the light industrial units had closed down over the years

didn't know about the tower block on southwold road, can't picture it, might have a walk down there later.

I have had some involvement with the woodberry down redevelopment, it is huge, and has been royally fucked up imo by the number of players involved, hackney, various government agencies, and various housing associations, it's a long term plan, yet Hackney have tendered out the management contract, and created an Almo in the years since it was first proposed, resulting in at least two housing associations having housing management responsibilities for woodberry down over the last 5 years or so, and these contracts usually last for 5 years or so, so more changes might be afoot, further complicating the redevelopment, meanwhile hundreds of flats are boarded up, and made ususeable by ripping out toilets/kitchens etc. they will be empty for probably 5-15 years - it's a mess

 

[marty21]

talking of mixed tenure, the problem imo, is enforced mixed tenure, in my street there is a mixture of tenures, council owned, housing association owned, privately rented, privately owned, and this mixed tenure has evolved over the hundred or so year history of the street

most large housing association developments promote this mixed tenure ideal, mixture of rented, shared ownership, shared equity, private owned, private rented (speculators who buy just to rent out the units) and the mixed tenure is forced, all the tenures move in at the same time, and there are problems as a result of the differing uses of the homes, as a housing officer you have to deal with a myriad of management problems on these sort of schemes, and while i can see the rationale of them - trying to avoid ghettoisation, in reality they rarely work, although there can be exceptions, one scheme i managed in lower clapton united the shared owners and the rented, against a common enemies, the housing association and hackney council.

there are issues on council estates following rtb, this brought in mixed tenure, first generation it probably wasn't too much of an issue, as the tenants bought their flats and stated there, then they sold up and owner occupiers moved in, or private renters, and the management of the schemes becomes problematic, a social landlord had to rely on private landlords managing any issues with their tenants and often private landlords can't be arsed sorting things out as all they are interested in his the rent money outetrnantsv rte..

 

[brasicritique]

shared ownership is not rtb, it's funded as a shared ownership, the whole point of it is that people can "staircase" and buy further shares until they do own it

which is what i referd to

pointless arguing over whether rtb in the past was good or bad imo, what's done is done, you can't undo it

well mayb eyou should tell that to those posters who on other threds and indeed journolists who print articles or make tv programs such as the recent series on about the lack of housing on channel 4- where the working class righ tot buy has been blamed for the lack of houisng

that said, rtb did reduce the stock of social housing, and housing associations who took over the provision of new social housing in the early 90s, just can't build enough to meet the demand, there are some local authorities who have started small build schemes, but there needs to be a lot more social house build than is currently being done, and the recession will restrict the ability of either housing associations or local authorities to build more, or the government in it's attempt to buy their way out of recession could fund a large social housing development programme

no the rtb did not reduce the stock what DID reduce the stock was that the government both labour and tory refused to let councils revinvest money from trtb on new council housing

and as i said shared ownership isn't subsidised housing, since ultimately they buy at a market rate

no imo your wrong again it IS suberserdised as public funds taken from the tax payer ie PFI schemes were used to build the housing for profesionals with the effect of taking away funding for building council houses- hence the disproportionate funding which has gone into homes for key workers or the professional class as it were who then can and do buy them wether they buy them at market rate or not is beside the point the point is is that the government adpoted a housing policy that saw housing being bult for those who could afford it most as opposed to those who could not afford it all and all the so called liberal lefty journos chose to ignore this and concentrate on blaming the rtb - such as you do for the shortage of housing when in fact this is not what actually what has happened over the past 10 years

for example you can be an EU citizen work as a teacher or nanny in a private school and be deemed a 'key worker' get a flat with the right to buy and buy it despite owning property abroad

btw thank you for engaing in rational debate as opposed to reaching for ignore or flaming

 

[belboid]

1) this threads is NOT just for londoners but i would expect posters to know what they are talking about ..clearly, in this instance, you do not, as you do not seem to realise HOW many flats, private AND social rented have actually been built in the last decades with NO change in homlessness, and seem happy to go along with the build build build line with no understanding of what that means on the ground here in london

lol, anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant then? do fuck off. as its an area i work in, i pay attention to such matters, and not just on my own doorstep. hence mentioning the need earlier to priorities the taking over of empty properties - something you did eventually do yourself in post 23.

you say you work in regen? no i did not know ..in london most of us regard that as pretty gutter .. what do you mean by regen?

well, we have discussed it before, and you recognised the fact previously, but then your memory seems to be poor considering the tosh you posted up without thinking through the consequences. it is pointless to simply go 'regen is shit' (much as i might agree with that in general), our point should surely be to expose and oppose the privatising aspect of it, whilst proposing al;ternatives that would genuinely benerfit our communities - both the ones that exist now, and the ones that will come into being due to the inevitable changes in the way people live their lives (not all of which are determined by capital, as you seem to simplistically suggest). crackpot 'get rich quick schemes' are of no value in doing that.

2) how on earth does a propsal of arguing for sustainable development, as on paper the green do, support ANY section of finance capital that makes no sense at all ..

but that's what you are doing too (or were till you twigged about the number of empty properties).

Any campaign should, i think, be focused on bringing those empty properties into social housing. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any new builds, as plenty of the existing housing stock is shitty, and not suitable for the way people want to live today (ie in smaller households than thirty or fifty years ago).

 

[marty21]

the stock was still reduced because of rtb, yes the councils couldn't use the receipts to build more housing, and weren't allowed to build anyway, but had there been no rtb, you would have less of a problem with overcrowding imo as the larger properties tended to be the ones that were bought and taken out of social housing



most shared ownership schemes are built by housing associations and funded from their own funds or government grant, not pfi afaik, and shared ownership schemes ultimately, it could be argued, make a profit, as they sell off the shares at market rates, once the shares have been sold, the housing association can reinvest the money received

 

[brasicritique]

the stock was still reduced because of rtb, yes the councils couldn't use the receipts to build more housing, and weren't allowed to build anyway, but had there been no rtb, you would have less of a problem with overcrowding imo as the larger properties tended to be the ones that were bought and taken out of social housing

if there was no rtb then the porperties would still be occupied by the same people so there would still be a lack of council housing

most shared ownership schemes are built by housing associations and funded from their own funds or government grant,[/I] not pfi afaik, and shared ownership schemes ultimately, it could be argued, make a profit, as they sell off the shares at market rates, once the shares have been sold, the housing association can reinvest the money received

yes i know however as you admit government funds are used for this purpose and when you consider the lack of council houses funded by government government has disproportionately funded housing for key workers who could work in the private sector and own property abroad and still get a place to live which they can then buy

 

[belboid]

if there was no rtb then the porperties would still be occupied by the same people so there would still be a lack of council housing

not true. Many of the properties would have been vacated in the time since purchase. Either because the tenant died without having anyone to inherit the tenancy, or by them moving somewhere else, buying a place maybe. There would still be insufficient council housing, no doubt. But the situation wouldn't be quite as bad.

 

[marty21]

if there was no rtb then the porperties would still be occupied by the same people so there would still be a lack of council housing



yes i know however as you admit government funds are used for this purpose and when you consider the lack of council houses funded by government government has disproportionately funded housing for key workers who could work in the private sector and own property abroad and still get a place to live which they can then buy

if there was no rtb, there would have been a natural turnover of properties as tenants either died, or bought properties elsewhere, so new tenancies would be created in the same properties, plus older tenants in larger properties who didn't need them as their children had moved on, could be encouraged to trade down to smaller properties, freeing up their family sized units for new families.

not sure what you have against key workers getting affordable homes, they are mostly not that well paid, nurses, teachers, fire fighters and police, and a lack of affordable housing near their work places can result in recruitment problems in those professions - this issue is particularly felt in major cities with high property prices