Newsnight... The shortage in housing

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I think people are concentrating a little too much on the idea that a land mass will be picked and dense housing laid down.

In reality, 20 additional houses to each town would probably have the same effect (I haven't done the math...just an example).

And when you look at it that way, it's slightly less of a massive issue.

But they are mostly needed in the South East.

coastline

ukcarper wrote: »

But they are mostly needed in the South East.

The building of 2m UK homes was in the pipeline over a decade ago....looks like the problems are the same then..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-178719/MPs-slam-200-000-new-homes-plan.html

Generali

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Pretty much the same as the Conservatives would have done then. Leaving it to the free market is a resounding success obviously.

It's not been left to the free market, indeed that precisely the problem.

The reason British house prices are so prone to bubbles is that not enough are built. The reason for that is it's so damn hard to get planning permission.

coastline

from June 2010..

http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/property/uk-property-will-a-change-in-the-law-leave-britain-short-of-houses-49116

grizzly1911

Generali wrote: »

It's not been left to the free market, indeed that precisely the problem.

The reason British house prices are so prone to bubbles is that not enough are built. The reason for that is it's so damn hard to get planning permission.

I really don't believe that planning permission (or lack of it ) is the sole reason or dominant reason. Developer bottom line will also have an influencing factor amongst a raft of others.

cotleigh

grizzly1911 wrote: »

After Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in May 1979, the legislation to implement the Right to Buy was passed in the Housing Act 1980. The sale price of a council house was based on its market valuation but also included a discount to reflect the rents paid by tenants and also to encourage take-up. The legislation gave council tenants the right to buy their council house at a discounted value, depending on how long they had been living in the house, with the proviso that if they sold their house before a minimum period had expired they would have to pay back a proportion of the discount. The sales were an attractive deal for tenants and hundreds of thousands of homes were sold. The policy is regarded as one of the major points of Thatcherism.
Proceeds of the sales were paid to the local authorities, but they were restricted to spending the money to reduce their debt until it was cleared, rather than being able to spend it on building more homes. The effect was to reduce the council housing stock, especially in areas where property prices were high such as London and the south-east of England.
200,000 council houses were sold to their tenants in 1982, and by 1987, more than 1,000,000 council houses in Britain had been sold

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Buy

Of course it all the fault of labour alone.

I know why it was done but nothing resilient was set up to replace that need and requirement.

Selling off some council houses to their tenants did not in any way reduce the total number of actual houses in the nation. It just changed who owned some of them.

Given that each successful "right to buy" owner "took" one council house away from the council's stock, but also took themselves off the list of people needing council houses, I don't see that RTB changed much on its own.

ukcarper

cotleigh wrote: »

Selling off some council houses to their tenants did not in any way reduce the total number of actual houses in the nation. It just changed who owned some of them.

Given that each successful "right to buy" owner "took" one council house away from the council's stock, but also took themselves off the list of people needing council houses, I don't see that RTB changed much on its own.

It might not have reduced amount of housing but certainly reduced the amount of affordable housing and we are paying price now.

Graham_Devon

ukcarper wrote: »

But they are mostly needed in the South East.

And everywhere else.

You are not seriously suggesting a housing mass the size of London itself is needed in the South East.... are you!?

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

And everywhere else.

You are not seriously suggesting a housing mass the size of London itself is needed in the South East.... are you!?

The amount of housing proposed is 2.5x the size of Greater London and a large percentage of that wiil be needed in the South East.

grizzly1911

cotleigh wrote: »

Selling off some council houses to their tenants did not in any way reduce the total number of actual houses in the nation. It just changed who owned some of them.

Given that each successful "right to buy" owner "took" one council house away from the council's stock, but also took themselves off the list of people needing council houses, I don't see that RTB changed much on its own.

That would be fine if the population required the same it has increased.

It reduced the stock available for social needs and transient people in need. We now pay money through expensive HB to private LLs to try and fulfill they same requirement

Many of the properties sold were priced at a substantial discount. Assets acquired over some time sold at undervalue very quickly.

Even if local councils had been allowed to reinvest in new housing stock they couldn't have been replaced 1/1 as insufficient funds were raised..

That stock has never been replaced.