Housing Policy

I do agree that more social housing needs to be built at affordable prices. If there is a huge social housing building programme it “might” bring private rents down to more affordable levels. But there is a long way to go to achieve that.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/19/britain-housing-market-broken-labour-council-houses?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Well we have to start somewhere and stopping the right to buy for Council and Housing Association properties would be a good start.

Things a Government could do:

Reinstate lifetime tenancies so that people feel secure in their homes, then maybe they will not necessarily want to buy. Or, if rents are a reasonable level, people will be able to save for a deposit, as they used to be able to do.

Don't let landlords just refuse to bring their properties up to a reasonable standard, ask them to give reasons why they are not doing so. if a landlord genuinely can'afford to bring a property up to a reasonable standard then offer them a loan at a reasonable rate to enable them to do so, or as a last resort, compulsory purchase by the Govt or Local Authority.

When a large building company says they will include a number of affordable homes in a development, make sure that they actually do that and set a rate that a property be deemed affordable that is realistic i.e. something like four times the median average salary.

Yes I agree that the large building companies exploit the “affordable homes” clause by sitting on the land and just refusing to start work on the development until the local council agrees to reduce the percentage of affordable homes.
I think if that happens, the council should be allowed to take over the development, offering it to another builder or develop it themselves.

Yes, these large building firms seem to be able to hold Councils to ransom.
The contracts should insist that the work is carried out in a reasonable time frame, or the contract is void.

the right to buy was abolished in Scotland a couple of years ago,the Scottish governments affordable housing numbers are on target with 70,000 being built in the past few years ,although less than 10,000 of those are council owned .Many more are housing association.In my area there have been several hundred HA properties released for let in the past year ..new properties.Currently another 400 under construction .Older council houses are being refurbished inside and out to make them more lettable .If it can happen here it should be possible down south .

I can’t think why (in England) they ever allowed council homes to be sold off without allowing the councils to use the sale receipts to build replacements. Crazy.

Sounds very sensible in Scotland paddy.

our local council is running adverts in the local press offering incentives if people rent in previously undesirable areas...transport costs to work being one of them.The houses look great ,been refurbished to a high standard...now they have to keep the bad tenants out so it doesn't deteriorate again .

I think this is an area where Labour's idea for a National Investment Bank would be really helpful.
When the Govt gave money to the banks after the banking crisis, they were supposed to use this money to help businesses, but they didn't.
A National Investment Bank could lend money at reasonable rates to the smaller building companies, who would not only actually build houses, but would be more likely to build them on smaller plots, just a few houses, but more likely to be on brownfield sights, inside towns and cities.

Mmmm ...... I wonder what happened to that idea of banks helping small businesses.
I agree Ilovecheese National Investment Bank would be very useful for small building companies (and other businesses).

More social housing and the end of right to buy, more housing officers specifically assigned to check that social accommodation is not being sub-let. People should be made fully aware that if they do sub-let council accommodation it is a serious criminal offence that can result in a prison sentence.

Sub letting is so wrong

I think that before housing benefit is paid on any property, there should be a certificate of safety and suitability issued by the local authority, and central government should fund local authorities to do this inspection. Too often we see and read reports of disgusting properties with broken toilets/damp/shared kitchens etc, and we, the tax payers, are handing over thousands of pounds per year to these rogue landlords. I would also like to see local authorities able to borrow money at historically low rates as they are now, and build homes for long term rental, thus giving families security and the ability to put down roots, decorate the home as they wish, plant out gardens etc. Not only is this beneficial to children, going to the same school for a few years, making local friends etc., it stops the ghetto effect which can come about in areas where the majority of properties are short term rentals with the ensuing lack of interest in planting gardens, maintaining exteriors, etc.
As I understand it, the 'affordable properties' part of a new development has changed. At one time, in return for granting planning permission or selling land at a below market price, the local authority was granted a percentage of the new build homes to assign to people on their waiting list, not a bad system in fairness. But, Cameron changed this, and the provision of a certain percentage of properties available on 'help to buy' was deemed to be provision of affordable homes.

Before the selling off of council housing, one third of the population lived in rented council property. The surest and safest way to provide less well off households with long term decent accommodation at an affordable rent.

I think that this division of one third of all households needing reasonably priced long term lifetime rented accommodation is likely to remain and the rise in home ownership levels as a result of selling off council housing at well below market prices will be seen to be a blip.

I still believe that the best way to provide this housing is through the public provision of rented property. Putting aside the legislation that favours short term rather than long-term rental in the private sector. The very nature of private provision, much of it by individuals rather than companies, means that tenancies, even long tenancies can be ended because the owner wishes or needs to sell the property or live in it themselves.

Also, one of the problems with relying on private developers to provide the houses, is that they too are at the mercy of the market. The local authority I live in gave planning for a new 'suburb' of 5000 plus new houses just before the 2008 crash. The developers were raring to go and started building, but when the financial market crashed, people stopped buying houses, worried about the security of their jobs, uncertain of the future and the developers were left with phases of fully built unsold homes, with house prices falling and quite sensibly stopped building until they had sold the backlog of completed housing. The provision of public housing should not be left to the mercies of the market.

Yes social housing building programmes seem ideal and logical. After WW2 it was accepted that we needed to rebuild quickly. But there seem to be ideological arguments against it nowadays. Free market principles and the ability to make a profit are prized by the current political thinking.

State ownership is an ogre that many seem to fear.

paddy talks about a more sensible attitude in Scotland (above).