How can block booking stack up?

28/10/2010 4:42 pm

Anon - Is Section 180 funding likely to be able to pay for 80,000 units? A quick extrapolation of my very crude figures for 80,000 lots of £65 per night works out at £1.9bn per annum.

28/10/2010 4:51 pm

just done a quick check and the cheapest family room in a B& B in Hastings (curiously described as large family room, maximum 2 persons!!!) is £85 per night.  So assuming the hugely increased demand does not see rates climb by any more than the discount a block booking can achieve this means almost £2.5bn.

Isnt other homeless funding being cut? - Doesnt The Temporary accommodation amendment order 2010 do just that? (SI 2509 / 2010)

03/11/2010 2:00 pm

Have these block bookings been confirmed or is it journalistic licence at work again?

03/11/2010 3:05 pm

Just to clarify on this one - B&Bs can be had for £30 a night in Hastings. Given the average occupancy rates for B&Bs is around 40-60% a block booking securing 100% occupancy for a significant period of time is likely to mean a significant discount could be secured.

Whilst the relative merits of such an action are obviously still up for debate, the fact it will save money isn't - Joe's being a bit creative with his sums - again.

03/11/2010 4:51 pm

Dear Anonymous

Rather than charging my figures with your assertions

(a) go online and see how many B&Bs are available at £30 pn in Hastings and Luton et al. 

Perhaps as many similar anonymous figures on here use the internet to see feel free to see how many are available.

(b) please reference where you find 40 - 60% average occupancy rates for B&Bs while you are there.  Or is that yet another plucked out of thin air?

(c) may we keep this on the costs rather than the merits.  I have no objections to you remaining anonymous, I do however have them when you cite figures as apparent facts.  Please produce those facts of occupancy and rates.

Finally, two quick points.  Firstly I noticed you didnt challenge the B&B costs for families.  Secondly, you also didnt comment on the  availability of 80,000 such units being available - that is a critical factor - Rather you very very crudely stated that it will save money; so if you are so sure please produce some alternate figures and advise where this money is coming from

03/11/2010 5:51 pm

Oh dear anon - please check your own references.

The headline rate may say rooms from £25 per night.  Try booking one.  I have just been on the website and found no availability at all - not even from April next year. 

Oh dear again - the Tourist board does have bedspace utilisation at 59% but occupanct rates at 72%.  So unless you are propsing that unrelated people share rooms?

Moreover, that generic information on occupancy is for England and not rpresentative of Hastings or Luton or Slough.  It could be higher or lower of course but on balance I would suggest that a seaside resort such as Hastings is likely to have far higher than average occupnacy rates than say Slough (and not just Betjemans fault!)

Where are these 80,000 rooms?  If the one example you give has no availability then where is the availability.

Yes google is easy - but please take 2 minutes to read what you research rather than assume it is fact! 

Finally, it seems from using your sources of (alleged) available abd cheap provision that my figures are in fact an underestimate.  Unless you can find cheaper again Mr Anonymous?

Further when on booking part of website the cheapest rooms are £55 per night and a family room at £110pn - Yet even these are not available!

03/11/2010 11:45 pm

Hopefully people will read the details in the link and make their own judgements. Once again Joe you've taken the information that suits your argument and ignored the rest.

The 72% you quote is for August only, and doesn't compare the with the substantially reduced occupancy rates in the winter months. Taken as an average it falls comfortably within the 40-60% quoted.

Personal experience leads me to believe rooms are available in most towns for around the £30 mark. Often not published on the internet (a quite expensive form of advertising incidentally - you're unlikely to find the best prices there). I know this because I've stayed in many cheap hotels - perhaps you're more of a champagne socialist and only stay in better places than me.

Given a hotel can continue to operate profitably on a 40-60% occupancy rate, if something approaching 100% can be secured the additional costs per room rented would minimal. Many of the costs associated with such a business are fixed, meaning as the occupancy rate rises profits rise at a greater rate.

Once again I would hope people would reach their own conclusions, you consistently cherry pick information to suit your argument, often completely ignoring information which doesn't suit your narrow minded view.

I'm not suggesting the solution to all social housing problems will be found in a B&B in Hastings, I just find it frustrating you consistently cling to inaccurate beliefs about how much such an idea would cost to implement.

04/11/2010 10:14 am

Please people....just agree to differ!

04/11/2010 12:07 pm

'Yet more cost to the public purse due to incompetent and ill thought through ideas'

I agree. Its a shame Labour were not more organised and left the ConDems to sort out this mess.

If Boris gets his billion maybe he can start to sort out the cock-up that is housing in London.

05/11/2010 11:54 am

Joe - Once again you've misread the report. It's not the period of August 2008-2010, rather occupancy rates in August 2008, August 2009 and August 2010 that are being compared. Again, the figures for the winter months are massively lower meaning the average 40-60% occupancy rates over the course of a year is a perfectly reasonable estimate.

Quite why you seem to think the Hastings B&B market should differ so wildly from the rest of the UK is beyond me, although I suspect it's because it doesn't fit with your viewpoint. You seem to use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost - for support rather than illumination. Perhaps unsurprisingly nobody seems to have taken the time to conduct in depth analysis of the Hastings B&B market, that being the case reference to a UK wide survey seems reasonable.

I am well aquainted with cheap hotels, brief negotiations with hotel owners has always secured me a room for around the £30 mark in a number of places such as Reading (a fair comparable to somewhere like Luton) and Newquay (a reasonably desireable holiday town). But hey, why let facts get in the way of a left wing rant.

I fail to see how you can cling to the belief that it's always going to be cheaper to accommodate people in a flat in expensive areas of London rather than a B&B property in Hastings

Once again I'm not suggesting all London's social housing problems could be solved by shipping people to B&Bs in Hastings, but that doesn't give you free reign to fabricate figures and dismiss out of hand an option that may work in some instances.

Your consistent misrepresentation and lack of understanding of what is a fairly simple piece of research means you leave me (and hopefully anyone else with a interest in accuracy) no choice but to ignore all "facts" you quote unless specificially referenced.