There are supposed to be, currently, 1.6 million families (or 4 million people) waiting for social housing. This is expected to rise.
But, in an unexpected perk of the crisis of global capitalism, 335 of those families might get somewhere thanks to the buyout of unsold developers’ stock by HMG. This is a £13 million pound tranche of what is apparently a £200 million fund to buy up unsold private built stock for social housing. So far this has bought up 2000 homes, we are told (1665 before this announcement, then).
I’m a little curious about the figures. 335 homes for £13 million equates to about £39,000 per site. Where are these sites?
But in any case, while this may help out a few builder/developers (and brickmakers, scaffolding leasers etc.), it is just a drop in the ocean of demand. Still, now Keynes is being discussed again, perhaps returning rent income to local authorities to allow them to build new stock could be pitched as an employment creation and business support policy.
All pigs are fed and ready for take-off…
Poll Tax all over again!
those of us who get Arden cahmbers Housing review will have got a summary of the proposal s of the Institute of Housing, sorry the “Chartered ” Institute of Housing’s proposal in respomnse to the Social Housing problem ahead of the Govt’s green paper
one of their suggestions is ” restructuring housing benefit as a whole, so that housing benefit never meets 100% of rent”
stupid stupid stupid,
I have always thought that the 1 thing that that caused the real anger and eventually sank the poll tax was Thatcher’s decision that everybody would have to pay even those on Income support would have to pay 20% of the poll tax
the CIoH don’t appear to have learn the lesson
the other aspect of their report shows they are not people related but think in terms of units of accommodation is that they forget they are dealing with homes. they propose
all new tenancies are subject to review so that persons whose circumstances change after they have been granted a tenancy, may be encouraged to move from social housing either to the private rented sector, to shared ownership or to outright ownership.
I’ve always thought that IoH /CIoH is the voice of local auth housing management
Tamsin Cox and Elizabeth Fitzgerald have just made a good podcast on this very topic. http://www.cpdcast.com
@AidenB – really? It appears that their podcast is about adverse possession (see http://www.cpdcast.com/podcasts/adverse_possession_claims) which doesn’t have very much to do with social housing.
@AidanB: As J says, the podcast has nothing to do with social housing. Any further attempts to use this blog as advertising will be removed without notice.
I have a question in regards to social housing, with the number of people on the housing lists of all counties across the country, and the number of derelict and unused commercial property that is literally wasting away, why can not these buildings be converted into social housing, to provide sustainable, safe living, and ease the burden on the housing lists, and the tax payers. Surely, these properties can be converted in to flats, that would provide homes to thousands of less privilaged people. Each city and town, has at least one industrial and retail park that has been outdated by a newer one. Iam aware that the owners pay full rates on these commercial properties, since this year even if they are empty, and this most probably adds up to a susbstantial budget for the government in taxes, but would the benefits of a conversion of these properties not outweigh the loss of the rates charged for these buildings? as these proposed tenants, would be paying a nominal rent to the government. Buying and converting these buildings will be far less, than the cost of purchasing the same number of separate dwellings, that could be at each site.