Demolishing housing estates

Not truthful about lots of things.

Here's an interesting petition just started.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/117927

Wanting a rerun of the election because of all the promises made but broken.

Thank you for the links Jen, so Cameron not truthful when he made his announcement on cleaning up sink estate,

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/07/labours-economic-policy-a-new-era-in-social-democratic-thinking/

And this. Of course, you'd have to vote Labour to get it.

PQE to fund house building for social housing. It would increase employment in the building trade as well as providing homes for those who need it.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/11/just-dont-say-it-too-loudly-but-this-is-peoples-quantitative-easing-on-its-way/

Loads of criticism, which is fine. Now let's hear some answers. What would you do?!

www.thecanary.co/2016/03/10/council-found-despicable-way-forcibly-remove-elderly-tenants/

An 80 year old man has been sectioned to remove him from his council house in Lambeth.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/27/david-cameron-sink-estates-fund-turns-out-to-be-loan

Knew it was too good to be true.

www.thecanary.co/2016/02/19/one-staggering-figure-shows-sky-rocketing-cost-housing-across-london/

But what you say is essentially the same thing. I accept I was wrong in thinking that properties were for sale before the 1980s but the point I was making is that it was not built as social housing and the letting etc was all done in the commercial housing market at market prices.

What the original flats are for sale for, or what the new ones in the property occupied by the YMCA or now being sold for is not relevant to what we were discussing about a tenants right to buy. There never was any social housing in the Barbican development.

The nearby Golden Lane development is different. That was built as social housing and the price of flats in this, now mixed social/private housing development starts at £500,000 and rushes upwards. From the research I have done the right to buy gives tenants in London a maximum of just over £100k discount on their flats, so the tenant will 'only' have to pay £400k for the smallest flat and £600k or more for the family sized dwellings.

As far as I can find out a tenant buying a share of their property will be expected to buy, initially a share of 30 - 45% as a minimum of the property. In other words take out a mortgage for at least £150,000 on a studio/1 bedroomed flat and £250k or more on the larger properties. That will require a household income of £50k - £80k or more a year. I may be being naive but I think that it is unlikely that many of the social tenants on these new improved estates will be able to afford to even start to buy a share in their own home let alone own it outright.

Monica The Barbican was not originally built for sale or rental on the open market.

It was built by The Corporation of London, using what funds private or public I don't know, but with the intention of charging market rents designed to attract professionals back to The City (the Square Mile) after the war.

Purchase of the properties only came into being with the Right to Buy scheme in the 1980s.

But the Barbican was always a private estate built for sale or rental on the open market. The YMCA were granted a lease on the site at a favourable rent but are vacating the site because they cannot afford to maintain the building they occupy, over £2 million in repairs is needed and although the leaseholder could require them to pay for the repairs, the YMCA had what is known as a repairing lease, they will not in fact be asked to pay any of this.

Is this unreasonable? and why should we condemn anyone just because they have a property with a Conran designed interior. I once owned some Conran designed furniture. Am I too to be condemned for this?

www.redrow.co.uk/london/developments/blake-tower-barbican#top

This was listed in yesterday's Guardian.
£725,000 for a one bedroomed flat.
£1,900,000 for a three bedroomed.

The firsat homes to be created on the Barbican estate for 50 years. Once the YMCA, it is being converted into 74 apartments with Conran-designed interiors.
Not quite YMCA, then.

Yes, I mentioned that, but even the smallest market property in these kind of inner city locations is unlikely to sell for under £500K and family sized homes a lot more

Near the Barbican is a similar high rise development, designed by the same architects and built as council housing. The Golden Lane estate; the cheapest one bedroomed flat in that development costs £500,000, heaven knows what a family three bedroomed property costs.

But MOnica, housing associations will build the social housing and they are allowed to sell them to sitting tenants

Cameron believes implicitly and blindly in the private sector. He deludes himself that getting the private sector to pay for improving these estates by allowing them to build houses for sale as well will somehow magically increase the number of homes in the social sector.

To be fair to him, outside the major conurbations, which is where all the sink estates are, this policy of insisting that 40 percent of all homes on a new development must be social housing has done much to provide both more homes and more social sector homes.

My village has acquired nearly 100 social sector homes this way plus much more socially mixed developments with everything from small flats and houses to large detached houses on the same site, which is typical of the distribution of village housing anyway.

In conurbations where the sites concerned already containing social housing and rebuilding in the private sector will encroach on the number of social homes provided and where any market housing, no matter how small will command a price way beyond the means of local people, even with the right to buy then this kind of development is completely unacceptable.

Better for the tenants but no ground to build houses to sell , Cameron believes everyone should have the chance to buy their homes - everyone has the chance to win the lottery too

theconversation.com/camerons-sink-estate-strategy-comes-at-a-human-cost-53358

Completely debunks Cameron's ideas, and states that refurbishment of council houses is cheaper and better for the tenants.
Cameron's ideas are a rehash of Blair's ideas.

durhamjen I wasn't talking about Hull, but in London, certainly, large areas of perfectly good Georgian and Victorian houses were compulsorily purchased and demolished to be replaced by new council properties

The reason for this is that the government would give councils up to 100% grants to demolish houses and build new properties but would not give them any money towards refurbishing properties, even though this was frequently the cheapest option.

I lived in Camden for most of the late 1960s and was active in local politics and this was explained to me by a local councillor, when a group of us challenged the council on its policy of demolishing perfectly sound houses to rebuild roughly the same number of new properties on the same site.

Horrible building, no beauty, no history ,costs us millions, I would be pleased if it was demolished and social housing built there .

I think the Queen may well agree with you re Buck House, anniebach, it is more offices and a place to conduct business than a home as far she is concerned (and leaky and crumbling too).

Jalima, not all buildings , you got rathe carried away with that list, but if I may give two examples, I would be devastated if Hampton court palace was demolished, Buck house is ugly, has little history and I couldn't care less if it was demolished , others may think it a beautiful building . We do not need to keep all the stately homes and the windsors housing arrangements are an insult to the millions in this country who need just two or three bedrooms.

Doubt this country will ever get past the - the privileged must always be protected.

They built a lot of prefabs, some of which are still lived in today (not sure what they did in Hull).

Monica, Hull was the most damaged city in Britain during the second world war, with 95% of houses damaged.
I do not think that the council needed to knock down perfectly good houses to build high-rise.
What do you think the planners should have done after the war, to give people houses fit to live in?

How do you know, roses?
The cost of refurbishment of Westminster Palace was £3 billion in 2012. That's probably gone up by a billion since then.
As Osborne wants devolution, why not devolve parliament and have mini ones in various parts of the country?

Back to rogue landlords;

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/nov/13/rogue-landlords-exploiting-deepening-housing-crisis

This is what the government does not care enough about to make it mandatory for rented houses to be fit for human habitation.
The fines are nowhere near enough. If every landlord could be fined the money they have taken in rent rather than have a maximum, perhaps the councils would be able to employ more people to inspect complaints.

Exactly jalima although djen was talking 'tongue in cheek' with that suggestion.
I know you are not deadly serious about it ( as you ask) djen because I suppose you a sane person.