a third of brits lived in council housing

ninky_2

what that programme really brought home was the difference between different types of council homes. some were well designed and built. others were concrete disasters.

what they programme also concluded was that as homes for working (class) communities, the homes were successful. as homes for homeless / those on benefits they were less successful.

dopester

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Totally agree. Home ownership had started to decline under the Labour government. I wasn't blaming the Tories for this

Do you think the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government are putting in the fundamentals to increase owner occupancy percentages in the coming years from current levels?

It's more complicated than "home ownership". I don't know lots of people, but quite a few are talking about moving south. Also on forums, people following the work. Policy Exchange might not be so far wrong when they say it's futile to keep subsidising failing areas. They suggested abandoning financial support for Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland ect, if you remember.

The economy is in massive transition with £400 million a day interest to pay on debt, overloaded with public and private sector debt, war costs, retailers about to get hit by a huge fall off in consumer spending (consumer spending being the engine of the economy). Home ownership in an economically depressed area - you're welcome to it.

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

but we know we are not talking about houses with solid oak kitchens. i agree old doesn't mean bad but the reality is most kitchens 20 years ago were not built to last. i'd argue that the age of the kitchen / bathroom is a good average indicator of the condition of the property and when it was last renovated.

the criteria of mould / mice is to my mind more flawed - and could in some cases be blamed on the tenant as much as the landlord. the age of the bathroom / kitchen is solely the landlord's responsibility.

I moved out of my old house when it was 20 years old and I'd lived in it from new. The kitchen and bathroom were not replaced at any time when I lived there and didn't need it when I left. It certainly wasn't a fancy bathroom or kitchen, just standard contract stuff, however I'd always shut not slammed the cupboard doors and used a cutting board instead of the worksurface and it would have carried on for ages. Bathroom is now 25 years old and still in use by current owners though they did change the kitchen as they made the whole downstairs open plan and knocked a wall through that had built in units on.

I don't agree that these things always need replacing, however it worries me greatly when landlords do stupid things, like not getting the gas serviced annually or get the electrics checked regularly - that's playing with people's lives, a slightly outdated kitchen or bathroom isn't.

dopester

vivatifosi wrote: »

I moved out of my old house when it was 20 years old and I'd lived in it from new. The kitchen and bathroom were not replaced at any time when I lived there and didn't need it when I left. It certainly wasn't a fancy bathroom or kitchen, just standard contract stuff, however I'd always shut not slammed the cupboard doors and used a cutting board instead of the worksurface and it would have carried on for ages. Bathroom is now 25 years old and still in use by current owners though they did change the kitchen as they made the whole downstairs open plan and knocked a wall through that had built in units on.

I don't agree that these things always need replacing, however it worries me greatly when landlords do stupid things, like not getting the gas serviced annually or get the electrics checked regularly - that's playing with people's lives, a slightly outdated kitchen or bathroom isn't.

Tut-tut. The BoE wants the people who did manage to put some savings away (even would-be FTBs who've been saving up to buy a home against years of raging house price inflation), to get out there and spend it all away.

The economy has been powered by credit galore and your duty to pick up the slack. Can't have house prices crashing can we... for that is the outlook now.

Consumer spending powers what... 85% of the economy. Tell them to get new bathroom fitted sharpish. The values of their home depends on new spending. The few people who haven't upgraded 25 year old bathroom suite, in perfect working condition, to some flashy modern suite are first in line to be spenders. Spend house prices from falling.

The Bank of England’s deputy governor yesterday urged the country to go on a shopping spree to boost the fragile economy.In an extraordinary move, Charles Bean said he wanted to see Britons ‘not saving more, but spending more’.

His remarks will surprise many at a time when record numbers are facing insolvency, the majority of workers do not have a pension and millions do not have a penny in any other savings.

Rather than save this money, the Bank hopes many will spend it on anything from a haircut to a new bathroom. In reality, many people have been so spooked by the past few years that they have become far more prudent. It comes as Britain’s debt mountain, including mortgages and credit cards, is £1,456billion, close to a record high.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315648/Bank-England-tells-UKs-22m-savers-boost-faltering-economy.html

Thrugelmir

ninky wrote: »

some examples; minimum wage. working time initiatives. regeneration schemes. investment in services that keep the worst excesses of social deprivation in check (for example social services). investment in public works. equality legislation and implementation.

Raiding the pension funds of private sector workers, many of whom received no employer contribution to their schemes. On the basis that the stock market would continue to rise and compensate for the removal of dividend tax credit relief.

Today Unilever announced the closure of its pension fund. Many have yet to feel the impact of that decisive policy change in 1997.

Jowo_2

ninky wrote: »

what that programme really brought home was the difference between different types of council homes. some were well designed and built. others were concrete disasters.

what they programme also concluded was that as homes for working (class) communities, the homes were successful. as homes for homeless / those on benefits they were less successful.

I've been interested in some of the debates around the tower blocks in Glasgow as many have been demolished.

Some argue that it wasn't structural problems in some of them that led them to be unpopular but a failure on the part of the council to manage the maintenance and the tenants, that once junkies moved in, the better tenants moved out.

A decent concierge and security system is also key.

According to this argument, it's not slum housing, it's slum tenants.

There was a property development company that wanted to buy some of the towerblocks, inlcluding those in the Gorbals, which is just a short walk into the city centre, but it was refused and they were demolished. The developer was confident that they could regenerate them.

Apparently, out of the two adjacent high flats in the Gorbals that were demolished, they were chalk and cheese, one was a crime den and the other was very popular and community spirited.

Norrie: "I worked as a Concierge in NorfolkCt Gorbals for 12 years.
I always said that it would be better to modernise them.
I have spoken to many tenants and former tenants who would never have left Norfolk if they had been modernised and the anti social element placed elswhere."

Here is someone else making the distinction between services and infrastructure rather than writing off the uglier end of the social housing spectrum as automatically being slums.

http://alistairrobinson.co.uk/architectonics-and-geotectonics-connections-and-coincidences-part-1-basil-spence/

"I never lived in a tower block, and when I was growing up in the eighties, many of them were as forbidding and ugly to me as they were to anyone else. But while most of them are ugly – because of all those nasty little corrupt or cheapskate councils and their incompetent architects and lazy contractors – there are many that deserve better appreciation. In fact, it’s easy to prove that tower blocks are not inherently bad, and that they can escape all those bad associations.

Get a good modernist tower block, give it a smart foyer and a concierge in a smart uniform and a smart hat, build a gym on the top floor, install lifts that work – then maintain them, and keep the place clean. Lo and Behold: luxury executive apartments! This is happening in various British cities, but this is exactly what should have been done years ago for all those council tenants."

Thrugelmir

Jowo wrote: »

I have spoken to many tenants and former tenants who would never have left Norfolk if they had been modernised and the anti social element placed elswhere."

And that's how you end up with sink estates. Try Walton in Liverpool for example (RW's homepatch).

The_Fox_3

There were many good hard working moral people that were raised one the old council estates, believe it or not a married working couple who had a couple of children could once get a council house..

Now days you have to be a special case, immigrant or play the victim(druggie for example) to get one

IveSeenTheLight

dopester wrote: »

It's more complicated than "home ownership". I don't know lots of people, but quite a few are talking about moving south. Also on forums, people following the work. Policy Exchange might not be so far wrong when they say it's futile to keep subsidising failing areas. They suggested abandoning financial support for Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland ect, if you remember.

The economy is in massive transition with £400 million a day interest to pay on debt, overloaded with public and private sector debt, war costs, retailers about to get hit by a huge fall off in consumer spending (consumer spending being the engine of the economy). Home ownership in an economically depressed area - you're welcome to it.

What you say may be true but we were discussing the political effect and reasons for the social housing sell off.
On that note, it most certainly is about "home ownership"

Not so convinced about your reference to Liverpool, Newcastle and Sunderland, there's probably plenty of smaller areas (i.e. Hull) that have shown as a greater risk.
Are you envisaging the majority of the north pack up their troubles and move south of the Watford gap?
Doubt it.....

Thrugelmir

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Are you envisaging the majority of the north pack up their troubles and move south of the Watford gap?
Doubt it.....

In the late 80's early 90's. Many found work in the Netherlands and Germany.