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BOE Governor "housing has deep problems"
Comments
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much of the council housing in the 60s and 70s was absolutely fine. It all went wrong when it was dcided that only those with "issues" could get council places and turned decent estates into ghettos.Hell no, the councils of Britain showed themselves to be utterly incapable of maintaining or building homes in the 1960s and 70s.
Provide land with planning permission for builders and they'll provide houses that people want to buy. Everyone else manages it.0 -
Hell no, the councils of Britain showed themselves to be utterly incapable of maintaining or building homes in the 1960s and 70s.
Provide land with planning permission for builders and they'll provide houses that people want to buy. Everyone else manages it.
There may have been problems with the way councils went about things from a housing perspective, but I think that was a matter of practice rather than principle. If you look at some of the properties owned and managed by Housing Associations today, it's hard to argue with the fact that much of the modern social housing sector does a very good job of providing decent homes at affordable prices.
You're right in your earlier comment that building more homes has to be the key part of the solution (although I think making socially better use of existing stock is also important), but what is clear to me, is that the market is unlikely to do that on it's own. You only have to look at the drop off in building as a result of price falls (as often talked about on here) to realise that builders will only build at certain price levels. Given that the whole point is that those price levels are unaffordable for significant numbers of people, it is clear that solutions outside the "free market" have to be part of the equation.
There's nothing new in this concept. There are many socially important services (health and education to name but two), where it is recognised that leaving the market to it's own devices leads to socially undesirable outcomes. Public sector involvement in these areas brings its own problems of course, but I don't see how anyone can argue that in health and education, we don't have better outcomes overall than we would if we "let the market decide" everything. Housing is also a socially crucial area, and we need a greater public involvement here too. In the long term, it is likely to be (at worst) cost neutral too.0 -
much of the council housing in the 60s and 70s was absolutely fine. It all went wrong when it was dcided that only those with "issues" could get council places and turned decent estates into ghettos.
No it wasn't. A staple of 1970s current affairs programming was appalling council housing that was making the tenants sick.
Council housing, for the most part, was badly maintained and in the case of tower blocks badly designed too for the most part.
The best thing is for most people to be able to own their own home. In France which has a great housing market, about 80% of people own.0 -
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Why are these places that are so terrible now selling at prices of up to a million or so then?No it wasn't. A staple of 1970s current affairs programming was appalling council housing that was making the tenants sick.
Council housing, for the most part, was badly maintained and in the case of tower blocks badly designed too for the most part.
The best thing is for most people to be able to own their own home. In France which has a great housing market, about 80% of people own.
Can't be that bad.0 -
Nobody disagrees that more houses need to be built but who is going to build them and how much are they going to charge?0
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No it wasn't. A staple of 1970s current affairs programming was appalling council housing that was making the tenants sick.
Council housing, for the most part, was badly maintained and in the case of tower blocks badly designed too for the most part.
The best thing is for most people to be able to own their own home. In France which has a great housing market, about 80% of people own.
The bad parts were the only parts reported and many were perfectly fine. People who are against council housing always assume that council housing would be bad while it should be possible to use the better practices for any future housing.0
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