Councils to move LHA claimants out of London - Inside Housing

vivatifosi

Observer running a piece on this tomorrow. No link as yet.

amcluesent

Councils plan for exodus of poor families from London

Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families – more than 200,000 people – face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers.

"It is tantamount to cleansing the poor out of rich areas – a brutal and shocking piece of social engineering," said Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham.

FACT - No, 'social engineering' was Labour's swamping the country with 7,000,000+ Mohammedans and illegals to smash stable communities and the British way of life.

PasturesNew

Jowo wrote: »

Many seaside destinations became DSS havens simply because they had tonnes of accommodation but UK seaside holiday resorts became out of fashion. Also, they don't tend to have much employment infrastructure to pick up the slack when the tourism diminished.

For example, Brighton is nicknamed DSS on Sea, plus Margate and Blackpool have suffered similar fates.

Penzance was a classic for this. End of the train line, if you're running away from stuff - you might as well get on the train as far as it takes you and be at the seaside on the dole.

There is actually a studio bedsit for auction at £16k in Penzance - http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-28201738.html and quite a few others about the £15-30k mark too - this month.

http://www.eigroup.co.uk/imagelib/lotphotos/hah/20101104/45.pdf

Whole house seems to have sold for £305k in 2004 and been split up: http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=tr18+3aj+5&n=10

Anti-social crime and vehicle crime are "high": http://maps.police.uk/view/?q=tr18+3aj&url=


Big drugs problems down that way. My elderly parents, when looking to live in Cornwall went to Penzance one day and just walking along were hollered at by a group of drunk unsavoury types on the beach.

Penzance. Gorgeous. Seaside. Cornwall. Lovely .... but behind that facade and out of season it's a rough old hole.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

Observer running a piece on this tomorrow. No link as yet.

Is the observer the guardian? I put observer into my browser and it forwarded to the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/24/exodus-poor-families-from-london

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

Is the observer the guardian? I put observer into my browser and it forwarded to the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/24/exodus-poor-families-from-london

Thanks Pastures, that's the link. Observer is in effect the Guardian on Sunday.

vivatifosi

Well, I've now read the article. My main thoughts:

200,000 people is a heck of a lot to move. If that's true that could have a major impact on schools both outside and inside of London as the outside ones will struggle to cope with the extra pupils and the inside London ones would struggle for funding if their pupils leave. However will it really be 200,000?

I get the point by the DWP spokesperson who stated "The current way that it [housing benefit] is administered is unfair. It's not right that some families on benefits have been able to live in homes that most working families could not afford."

The emotive language used by some in the article does not help though. You can't compare this to the Highland Clearances.

Jowo_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

...
200,000 people is a heck of a lot to move.

The churn of people moving within and out of London each year is probably very high - many of my friends and relatives have moved in, within and out of the city over the last decade.

There's nothing strange about moving to take up a job, move in with a partner or attend a course somewhere else, though of course, these are voluntary on the part of the people, with the aim of improving their situation.

There is 7.5 million people in London (officially) so the 200,000 (if those are the numbers affected) represents around 2.6%. They aren't all affected on the same day, it comes in on the anniversary of their claim, so is very staggered.

silvercar

amcluesent wrote: »

Councils plan for exodus of poor families from London

Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families – more than 200,000 people – face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers.

"It is tantamount to cleansing the poor out of rich areas – a brutal and shocking piece of social engineering," said Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham.

FACT - No, 'social engineering' was Labour's swamping the country with 7,000,000+ Mohammedans and illegals to smash stable communities and the British way of life.

But no-one is actually moving them are they? "They" will realise that they can't afford the rent in that area, so will seek a more affordable area themselves. In the same way that people in employment move to the location of a new job.

The effect will be a slow and gradual dispersement, rather than people being bussed out by the coach load.

Jowo_2

amcluesent wrote: »

...Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families – more than 200,000 people – face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers.

...

Ah, back to evil landlords again.

Nothing about the structural problems that caused this - failure of successive governments to tackle population (i.e. immigration growth), sort out housing shortages (loss of social housing, failure to build new properties), Labour's unaffordable benefits system (where more is paid out than was received in income tax, etc).

Or that public sentiment has changed and has started to question why workless households enjoy living in areas of the country and properties that they can never afford, the kind of economic cushioning where a working person is not cushioned against economic realities. One wag wrote on a forum blamed the change in public attitude because of 'former Somalian goat herders living in multi million pound properties in Kensington.'

Malcolm.

silvercar wrote: »

But no-one is actually moving them are they?

For some, I think it may come down to just that. I expect many won't want to move away from areas, schools and people they're familiar with without protest.