a third of brits lived in council housing

vivatifosi

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Hmmmm, you've quoted a post of mine where I was not discussing pre-fabs, but the return to1/3 of brits renting council properties

Apologies ISTL, I meant to have quoted StevieJ's post which was the one below and the two merged into one while I was watching the programme. Sorry...:o

ukcarper

vivatifosi wrote: »

There are plenty of pre-fabs still not far from me, but a lot of them have been refaced in brick. They aren't like the ones in the picture, more like two storey houses but made of precast concrete and tin. They offered the chance for the council tenants to move out and have them rebuilt as new, but they chose to have them refaced in brick instead as they are nice big houses.

Like these http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts%3Fu%3D/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Bardrainney_BISF_Houses.JPG/200px-Bardrainney_BISF_Houses.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.ask.com/wiki/British_post-war_temporary_prefab_houses&usg=__fso0SogXAROfnnUP85eB-N5sffs=&h=583&w=800&sz=313&hl=en&start=194&zoom=1&tbnid=G8AYfBxHs1ytpM:&tbnh=162&tbnw=216&ei=P3mjTfePKsfx4QbbnNy6Aw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpost%2Bwar%2Bprecast%2Bconcrete%2Bhouse%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D860%26tbm%3Disch0%2C6611&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=413&oei=CnmjTeO4MNGu8QPM0pCoAw&page=10&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:194&tx=109&ty=97&biw=1280&bih=860

There are still some in Cobham Surrey two story bottom precast concrete top tin they will cost you over £200k.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

I think you are referring to prefabrecated housing (see below) and I doubt any of that is still standing. I thing the majority of rehousing developments in the 50's and 60's had a much longer life expectancy.

There are prefabs still standing and being lived in. You can see them as you enter Biggin Hill from the south.


ETA: sorry, looks like you've been bombarded with these!

StevieJ

Generali wrote: »

There are prefabs still standing and being lived in. You can see them as you enter Biggin Hill from the south.


ETA: sorry, looks like you've been bombarded with these!

Maybe it is a southern thing, I saw some once, long ago in Manchester but they have long gone and I have never seen any others.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Maybe it is a southern thing, I saw some once, long ago in Manchester but they have long gone and I have never seen any others.

I think the SE is the driest part of the UK so maybe it's something to do with not liking being rained on.

Running_Horse

ninky wrote: »

what would the country be like if we hadn't sold off all that social housing?

Playing devil's advocate, what would the country be like if there had never been any social housing to begin with?

Most people on low incomes would rent privately and be forced to keep their homes up to a minimum standard by the fear of losing a deposit.

There would be no underclass who think they have a right to live unproductive lives at the expense of taxpayers.

Public assets would not be sold off cheaply to those lucky enough to be given a house by the government.

More people would assume they have to work for home ownership, instead of being given it on a plate.

Welfare dependency would not be passed down from generation to generation.

People of all classes would tend to live together instead of being segregated into ghettoes.

In America they have gradually abolished housing projects, and nobody seems to be arguing for them to return.

Sibley

I've actually bought 2 council houses.

First time with my first wife. She had been a council tenant for years and got a massive discount. She still lives in it.

When we divorced I put my name down for a council flat. After a year or so I was offered one is a crappy area. I never stayed in the place a single day.

I offered somebody living in a much better area an incentive to swop with me. Ended up with a nice 2 bed semi which I bought for myself.

Sold that after 2 years (that's the rule) and made around 75k which I used as deposit on new place.

Not sure it should have been allowed but it put my finances on the map. Thanks Maggie

I don't know why some of the bears don't try the council route. Once you have somewhere you are free to exchange with somebody else. If you really have a few quid stashed away there is always somebody who will do it.

John_Pierpoint

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There's also been discussions about the return of the pre-fab
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/8279552/Prefab-homes-could-solve-UK-housing-crisis.html

Luxury housing Soweto style?

However, I think I would prefer this to living on the umpteenth floor of a "social" tower block, even when the lifts are working and smell of disinfectant not K9P or recycled "Stella".

Unfortunately architects still win prizes for experimenting on the tenants of social housing and I expect local councillors get to go to presentations and parties when they create something bizarre.

Here is an example:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2959648

My simple design guides for housing:

The naked ape thrives best in "villages" of mixed ability; these are groupings of up to 1000 households.
The cheapest housing - given that land is God created and so should be purchased at existing use value plus a modest premium, - is built near ground level, let say up to 4 stories. This allows two houses to to stacked on top of each other - "maisonettes" - when a high density is unavoidable.
This housing is also the cheapest to maintain and the most resilient in times of adversity.

Legislation is managing to create some social housing along these lines by forcing developers to include a low percentage of low cost dwellings in each new development.
However I have seen some examples built like a sectarian housing estate in Ulster, there is a "peace wall" intended to maintain the premium value of the houses to be sold, built to keep out the "social" tenants.
It should not be possible to classify the tenancy of a household as easily as that and such design reduces economic effectiveness. "Cheap easily available domestic and artisan support available locally" should be a selling point for the bigger houses.

dopester

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

How did that work out?
Was there not 13 years of Labour?
Did home ownership decrease under the Labour government?

Incidently, home ownership as a percentage of property stock has been decreasing since the Tories formed part of the coalition.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government was formed in May 2010.

Home ownership was was decreasing whilst Labour were in power. It's a little more complex than immediately blaming Conservatives for a fall in home ownership after 13 years of Labour and credit galore.

The reasons are complex and interconnected. Including a limit to how much lenders were prepared to lend, and how much borrowers were prepared to borrow as the HPI ceiling was reached. A fall is not always a bad thing, for I know quite a few people trying to sell but have chosen to rent out their homes to go rent someone else themselves, because they have failed to get the price they think their property is worth, and they are futilely holding out for magical peak prices to return. Maybe after further declines it will increase again with new entrants buying at much lower prices. Also other reasons involved.

Telegraph. February 2010

Around 3.1 million people in England rented a property privately during 2008/09, up from 2.1 million in 2001, according to the English Housing Survey. The increase, which is likely to have been driven by house price rises pushing home ownership out of many people's reach, was accompanied by a fall in the number of people living in their own home.

The research showed that 14.6 million people were owner-occupiers during 2008/09, down from a peak of 14.8 million in 2005/06.

But despite the fall, owner-occupation was still the most common form of housing tenure, accounting for 67.9pc of all households, although this was down from a high of 70.9pc in 2003.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/7299866/Rental-figures-soar-as-home-owners-decrease.html

pqrdef

Running_Horse wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate, what would the country be like if there had never been any social housing to begin with?

Have we forgotten the slums already?