a third of brits lived in council housing

pqrdef

Radiantsoul wrote: »

I suspect the discounts were granted as government believed their was a postive externatality(a kind of negative pollution) for private ownership of property. To be fair it does seem regardless of your political persuasion allowing people to own their own small home is likely to be a good thing as they will invest more, take pride in, etc.

The normal life cycle for the majority of the population was to be born penniless, work all your life, pay rent all your life, and die penniless. If you managed to save anything, it was only for a rainy day, and there were many rainy days. So generations came and went without ever owning any kind of capital asset.

Selling council houses did a lot to help change that. Many many people who expected to die poor suddenly found they could leave their offspring a tidy sum.

The working class as it used to be has mostly disappeared now. Nobody should be sorry.

Generali

pqrdef wrote: »

Have we forgotten the slums already?

The horizontal ones built with private money or the vertical ones built by taxpayers?

zappahey

pqrdef wrote: »

Selling council houses did a lot to help change that. Many many people who expected to die poor suddenly found they could leave their offspring a tidy sum.

Yes, a tidy sum of everyone else's money.

Who wouldn't be happy to buy an asset at half price, courtesy of taxpayers?

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

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

Or it could be that due to the Blitz hitting London disproportionately (no disrespect to Coventry and other affected cities) that there are more down here. I can't remember the figures from that housing prices through the ages bit I dug out, but something like 25% of the housing stock in London was destroyed or damaged, so given that it was already a city of millions that would have driven the need for a lot of houses in the suburbs and home counties. Similarly there are more new towns down here.

birkee

I find it interesting that so many people seem to think they know what Maggie's motives were for selling Council houses.
Most politically motivated ranting.
Could it be that the motive was to give more Council tenants the chance to own property, and therefore be more responsible citizens?
What some Council tenants did to Council property was totally unacceptable, but the 'do-gooders' wouldn't let them be kicked out onto the street.

How many people bought their Council house, and made it a much better property, only to find the Council tenants next door, tried to make a theirs a slum house?

ukcarper

birkee wrote: »

I find it interesting that so many people seem to think they know what Maggie's motives were for selling Council houses.
Most politically motivated ranting.
Could it be that the motive was to give more Council tenants the chance to own property, and therefore be more responsible citizens?
What some Council tenants did to Council property was totally unacceptable, but the 'do-gooders' wouldn't let them be kicked out onto the street.

How many people bought their Council house, and made it a much better property, only to find the Council tenants next door, tried to make a theirs a slum house?

The vast majority of council tenants in the 60s and 70s were responsible citizens.

blueboy43

Running_Horse wrote: »

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.

There was next to no social housing before 1900 (if we exclude alms houses and the philanthopic estates like Port Sunlight, Bournville etc).

All of your suggestions are simply wrong.

There was a massive underclass in Victorian England, issues like poverty, sloth, drunkeness, generational dependency were worse.

Every city had it slums (Seven Dials in London was notorious) where rooms and basesments would be rented often by the week. People would live a dozen to the room.

It would be difficult to think of a time in England where everyone lived happily together. Look at any city in the country, the pattern of housing is similar, the great Georgian houses built in walking distance from the city centre)but not too close to the port or centre). Wealthly people don't tend to want to live amongst the poor.

It was Aneurin Bevan who wanted council estates "where the working man, the doctor and the clergyman will live in close proximity to each other". Some hope

Such utter rubbish is spouted about council housing, usually based on anecdote even by sensible posters. Much of the stock built pre 1960's was a good standard - it was built and maintained to a much higher standard than most rented stock and it was often in fairly desirable areas. For a start, they had indoor toilets and hot running water & generally had more space than private rented stock.
Unsurprisingly this was bought eagerly by residents.

The 'slum clearances', which was the to address housing problems (almost all private rented stock by the way) of the 1960's was pretty disasterous. Whole areas of population was decanted from one place to another often against the wishes of the people being moved. Netherley started in 1967 in Liverpool would be a perfect example. No local employment, no transport links, concrete blocks thrown up on the cheap, problem tenants. People were being rehoused out of there within 10 years.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

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

Aye, but its wet down here in the sw and that's where I've seen 'em most recently. The ones in...Yeovil pretty sure its yeovil, are being replaced with new houses or flats where the prefabs stood, more of the new ones than there were prefabs.

birkee

ukcarper wrote: »

The vast majority of council tenants in the 60s and 70s were responsible citizens.

So what happened?

Alikay

It's a myth that council houses were freely available everywhere in the 60's. My parents lived in the SE and started married life living with parents, as was common then. Even with a baby in 1961 they didn't qualify for a council house, so saved very hard for the deposit and got a private mortgage from the vendor to buy a victorian conversion flat.