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From the archive: minister says councils should not build housing
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago
30 years ago
Housing associations – not councils – should be responsible for housing anyone who can’t afford to buy, the then-Conservative housing minister William Waldegrave announced, grabbing Inside Housing’s front page during a speech to his constituency in Bristol.
Councils shouldn’t build new homes and wouldn’t be allowed to spend Right to Buy receipts on this, Mr Waldegrave said, overturning promises made by his predecessors.
Although he admitted “it may be easier for the state to keep costs down”, he said that the government should subsidise income, instead of bricks and mortar – a policy which is being felt today in low build rates and a high housing benefits bill.
“People should be given the wherewithal to help themselves, rather than be put in specially managed ‘housing for the poor’.”
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20 years ago
Nuisance neighbours faced the prospect of arrest under newly introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), Inside Housing reported under the headline ‘Estate yobs to face arrest’. The start of the ASBO era was announced in a brief story revealing the details of what would later become an important tool in tackling anti-social behaviour.
Local authorities and housing associations in England and Wales would be allowed to apply for an injunction with the power of arrest, and prostitutes and drug dealers could lose their tenancies.
Nick Raynsford, then a junior environment minister in the new Labour government of Tony Blair, said the ASBOs would allow social landlords to “deal with troublemakers on housing estates, whether they are tenants or not, who make life hell for the majority of ordinary law-abiding tenants”.
Injunctions could cover drug dealing, racial harassment, dogs barking and loud music, and would apply where there had been a threat of violence. Offenders would be arrested and charged with breach of the peace or of their tenancy agreement.
10 years ago
A government probe was to investigate if buy-to-let investors were driving first-time buyers from the market.
The study by the Department for Communities and Local Government was begun as the number of mortgages issued to investors was closing in on the number issued to first-time buyers, from 70,000 to just under 15,000 in only two years, showing the growth of buy-to-let.
The study was to examine if the buy-to-let market was affecting the affordability of the housing market for first-time buyers, with Abigail Davies of the Chartered Institute of Housing saying research was needed to prove the link, although “you can almost see it in your street – houses that were once occupied by young families go to buy-to-let quite quickly.”
