Housing Before BTL

mwpt

TheeMaskedTurnip wrote: »

It's never been easy to buy your own gaff.

How old are you Mr. Parody poster?

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I don't understand why people look back at mistakes and assume we have to make them again should any council building take place.

The same mistakes will be made and a few new ones dreamt up too. Doesn't have to be like that but it will.

I'm amazed that someone who has been moaning about government approach to housing policy for so long has such faith in the same bunch of clowns to deliver a mass council house building programme without error.

The best mistake to avoid is building council houses at all.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

I'm amazed that someone who has been moaning about government approach to housing policy for so long has such faith in the same bunch of clowns to deliver a mass council house building programme without error.

The best mistake to avoid is building council houses at all.

Any council housing will be built by the main builders that are currently erecting houses all over the country for private sale.

Those same builders taking HTB subsidies etc etc.

So howcome they are OK when HTB etc is in place but not OK if the very same house is built for the council to use?

It's easier to simply state you are against the idea of council housing full stop than to try and get into an argument about detail to try and avoid saying "I don't want people to have access to council homes".

cells

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Any council housing will be built by the main builders that are currently erecting houses all over the country for private sale.

Those same builders taking HTB subsidies etc etc.

So howcome they are OK when HTB etc is in place but not OK if the very same house is built for the council to use?

It's easier to simply state you are against the idea of council housing full stop than to try and get into an argument about detail to try and avoid saying "I don't want people to have access to council homes".

There needs to be some council homes to support people that are likely to be discriminated against by the private sector because they dont know how to deal with them (eg disabled people or mentally ill people) and some council homes for the totally useless in life who can not run a household let alone budgets to pay rent or mortgages.

However that figure is not 1/3rd of the population and housing stock.

So the council homes should be sold down towards 10% of the stock starting with the councils that own over 40% of all the homes in their area a stupidly high figure.

cells

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's easier to simply state you are against the idea of council housing full stop than to try and get into an argument about detail to try and avoid saying "I don't want people to have access to council homes".

In about half the country, council homes are much more expensive than buying a home. This makes sense as the council just acts as a middleman adding cost to housing.

In places like Stoke-On-Trent or Darlington or Bradford or...many many other towns and cities the government would be better off just buying an existing house outright and giving it to a poor person rather than putting them into a council house

Buying a house outright for a social tenant in such areas would cost just £1k a year in interest payments in those towns and cities while the social rent is closer to £5k a year. A huge saving


In fact that is what probably should be done, sell off 500,000 council flats/houses in London and buy in their place 3 million homes and give them away (or sell at a 70% discount like with RTB) elsewhere in the country. The empty council estates in London should be sold off to developers who would likely knock down those 500,000 mostly flats and rebuilt 1 million + in their place.


of course there will be a lot of resistance to all this, there is a huge industry of council middlemen managing the stock who are quite happy for the social stock to stay (aka for their jobs to stay)

michaels

We don't expect councils to supply food or clothes or mobile phone services or haircuts because based on international experience it appears that the market system provides things more cheaply, more efficiently, more flexibly, with plenty of choice - compare this to the results of state provision from Russia to Venezuela.

And yet we think councils should supply housing. This is completely different from saying the state should not pay some or all of the housing costs of those who are incapable of providing for themselves which we can all support. Contracts could be put in place even for providing housing services for the 10% mention by Cells above although there do become issues around whether contracting costs outweigh efficiency savings.

cells

wotsthat wrote: »

The same mistakes will be made and a few new ones dreamt up too. Doesn't have to be like that but it will.

one of the worst mistakes was to concentrate social housing so much in some areas. Although every town and city has some social housing it varied from 5% to over 50%

I am not sure how they decided which councils would build how many or if it was a local or national government decision but it seems absurd now.

Places like hackney islington and tower hamlets became ghettos with 50% + social housing with the poor right in the center of the city while the people with jobs in the big employment hubs of the city and Westminster had to live in a commuter town and waste an hour each way and rail capacity. Hell maybe it was by design with the rails owned by the state maybe they did not want the workers close to the jobs so they would use the rails

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

one of the worst mistakes was to concentrate social housing so much in some areas. Although every town and city has some social housing it varied from 5% to over 50%

I am not sure how they decided which councils would build how many or if it was a local or national government decision but it seems absurd now.

Places like hackney islington and tower hamlets became ghettos with 50% + social housing with the poor right in the center of the city while the people with jobs in the big employment hubs of the city and Westminster had to live in a commuter town and waste an hour each way and rail capacity. Hell maybe it was by design with the rails owned by the state maybe they did not want the workers close to the jobs so they would use the rails

I would surmise that much of the council housing in these areas arose as much of these areas were heavily bombed during the war. As much of the housing was all very poor and unsanitary
it was a short step to demolish huge areas and build council housing

Graham_Devon

michaels wrote: »

We don't expect councils to supply food or clothes or mobile phone services or haircuts

In some cases they do.

However, outside of those very special cases, the councils, or welfare do provide those things. They just don't provide them directly.... they hand out a set amount of money which has been calculated to allow people to buy those things.

You are quite keen to take this money yourself - so I'm surprised to see you promoting people standing on their own two feet.

Graham_Devon

cells wrote: »

In places like Stoke-On-Trent or Darlington or Bradford or...many many other towns and cities the government would be better off just buying an existing house outright and giving it to a poor person rather than putting them into a council house

Blatantly stupid argument.

If you need me to go over the reasons, just let me know.

However, I'd be highly surprised if you need someone else to provide you with all the problems and hazards associated with buying houses and giving them to people.

I can't decide whether stating this sort of stuff is simply looking for attention or not?