Gresley
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Comment on: Shapps: housing supply will not meet demand
History is re-written to suit and reinforce a pre-determined position...
1961: private housebuilding 163,350; housing associations 1,560; local authorities 91,250
1971: private housebuilding 170,820; housing associations 10,170; local authorities 113,680
1981: private housebuilding 98,900; housing associations 16,820; local authorities 54,880
1991: private housebuilding 131,170; housing associations 15,300; local authorities 8,130
2001: private housebuilding 114,850; housing associations 14,500; local authorities 160
2011: private housebuilding 82,170; housing associations 24,530; local authorities 2,320
The only reason we can, according to Shapps, build just 170,000 homes a year is because thirty years of dogmatci adherence to neo-liberal economics have exlcuded local auhtorities from the picture. As the figures above show, without direct state provision, the market and quasi market cannot/will not meet the full need for homes.
So there we have it. We may be homeless but we will be faithful free marketeers... -
Comment on: Private sector rents rose by 0.5% in April
That is 0.5% less to spend on productive economic activity. Like buying a Vauxhall Astra made in Ellsemere Port for example rather than giving a parastic private landlord yet more money to spec up his imported bulgemobile. Has anyone in government clicked that there may just be a conection between rising rents and declining economic activity in the wider economy? Or is it that with a governmentmade up of members of the traditional landlord class they rather like that situation? After all, making cars and building houses - that's all 'trade;' isn't it?
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Comment on: Landlords to float on stock exchange
The end game. The privatisation of social housing and the transfer to the private rented sector is now taking place. The safeguards here (e.g. rents pegged to social rents etc) are but fig leaves and will soon disappear as the flood gates open. Let us not forget why the housing profession came about. To protect people from enduring the continuation of hundreds of years of grotesque exploitation by private landlords. It is also why the building society movement came about.
The article talks about this type of private landlords being more accountable as they have shareholders. Really? To quote: 'The participating associations, which cannot be named due to stock exchange rules' and 'the firm has developed a mechanism to avoid the REIT being regulated by the Homes and Communities Agency - although he declined to give details, citing commercial confidentiality'. Double speak par excellence...
If investors want to invest in houses, why not invest in providing the cash for mortages so people can buy their own home instead of an investment for someone else? Or why not lend to municipal landlords who are accountable to their tenants and communites?
Now, it is surely clear that no matter what the Con/Lib/Lab coalition may say in public, the direction of housing policy is regressive. Insecure, touch-your-forelock, high cost privately owned renting for the majority with landlordism and owner occupation for a small minority. One hundred years of improvements wiped out in just a few short years. -
Comment on: Southwark plans 1,000 council homes by 2020
This is GREAT news - well done Southwark. At long last, a sensible solution to the housing crisis. Let us hope this is just the beginning of a national renaissance in council housing. In spite of its problems (the late fifities and early sixties architectural fashions, the government enforced residualisation and run down in the 1980s and 1990s, out right dogmatic hostility during the Blair/Brown era) council housing has since the Homes Fit For Heroes movement provided millions of people with a decent, safe and affordable home. Something the market - and especially private and quasi-private rented housing has signally failed to do.
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Comment on: Councils get more time to spend right to buy cash
The 30% rule is a little restrictive but if council's can use their land assets, then many will if they are prudent be able to build council owned homes and let them at close to target rents. Every area will have a different challenge but I do hope that all stock holding authorities make use of the returns from their community owned assets to build homes owned by them, a locally accountable body, and not take the easy option of handing over cash to quasi-private, increaisngly unaccountable housing associations. Three years is more than enough time to get a new build under way.
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