Britons ‘to be priority on council house lists’

I think one of the reasons so often given, Calendargirl, is that there often aren’t any smaller, suitable properties in the same area.
But I agree, it does seem wrong, when families with children are crammed into small flats.

Witzend

I think one of the reasons so often given, Calendargirl, is that there often aren’t any smaller, suitable properties in the same area.
But I agree, it does seem wrong, when families with children are crammed into small flats.

Yes, there just aren’t enough smaller properties.

I’m going back a few years, but particularly remember an elderly widow in a little village, her children long grown and left home, she wasn’t paying her own rent and flatly refused to move from her 3 bedroom council house with garden.

A family could have been installed there, and back then, there were decent council flats available.

If she had been paying her own rent, fair enough, but she wasn’t.

On a similar theme, Calendargirl, there was a trade union leader - can’t remember his name, he died some years ago - who was earning £150k a year, but was still occupying a council house ‘on principle’.

I think of course people on the waiting list should get a house, but at the same time .... you're not serious you want to leave refugees, fleeing from war and disaster, living under a tarpaulin with their children? They should at least get temporary housing, a roof over their heads.

nanna8

Well who else would be priority? Americans? Italians? Can’t see a problem.

Immigrants obviously though I expect to be "cancelled" or called a racist for daring to say it.

bob crow, rmt.
he was born in a council house and said he would die in one, which he more or less did, but far earlier than anyone might have expected, when he collapsed suddenly one morning, never regained consciousness.

Has anyone got an air fryer? are they any good? And for one person should I get the one or two drawer type?

there are several threads on air fryers.
search through google.

they are replacing council homes near me every inch of land is being built on

Witzend

On a similar theme, Calendargirl, there was a trade union leader - can’t remember his name, he died some years ago - who was earning £150k a year, but was still occupying a council house ‘on principle’.

Bob Crowe and Eddie Dempsey - RMT union - both live in subsidised council accommodation. Mick lynch defended their right to council housing despite their high salaries. Going back a bit, Arthur Scargill was given the use of a council owned flat in the Barbican in 1982. He tried to use the right to buy scheme to buy it in the early 90s but was turned down. He managed to buy it using the scheme in 2014 - the flat was worth around £2m at the time and he got it half price. And that was despite the fact that he actually lived in a £600,000 three bedroom house in Yorkshire !!

I think this is yet another attempt to divert attention from what’s going on. Rather than admitting to and actually addressing the problems with social housing, it’s easier to blame it on immigration. Typical Tory divide and rule.

orly

nanna8

Well who else would be priority? Americans? Italians? Can’t see a problem.

Immigrants obviously though I expect to be "cancelled" or called a racist for daring to say it.

Well yes, but the proposals conveniently forget the migrant workers currently staffing the NHS and doing the jobs that Brits don’t want to do. I don’t think anyone has a problem with that, or genuine asylum seekers who have fled in fear of their lives. Blaming the problems with social housing on immigration is simplistic and divisive, and these proposals IMO are nothing more than a sticking plaster because the government don’t want to tackle the issues that are really to blame.

undecided

Has anyone got an air fryer? are they any good? And for one person should I get the one or two drawer type?

If you look in Food or Chat, you will find threads on air fryers. Alternatively, put Air Fryers Gransnet into google (don't omit the 'Gransnet') and it will find them for you.

(and IMO if you want a drawer one, go for 2 drawers, so you can cook more than one thing at a time).

Re council houses - whether they should be means tested is debatable. My feelings on means-testing are oft-repeated, but why build in a disincentive for working people to do well? If someone is happy in their home, likes their neighbours, has children in school locally etc, should they turn down a promotion if their income means that they would earn too much to stay in the home they were renting? I don't think they should. Everyone paid for council housing through taxes, so everyone, rich or poor, had a right to live in one (or that was the case before the great sell-off). All means-testing keeps people 'in their place', and this would be a particularly egregious use of it, IMO.

50 percent of social housing in some areas, including London, go to non UK citizens. A few suggestions to make social housing fairer..regular checks to ensure the legal tenant hasn't moved on and is subletting for profit: when social housing tenants income goes above a certain level, they pay more rent:no further sales of social housing stock. I could go on...

maytime2

Grantenow I think some of you are unaware that Housing is a devolved issue. One of the few things that I now agree with the Welsh Assembley is that a ban was put on the sale of Council Houses/Social Housing ( which seems to be the more prominent partner in Wales) a few years ago.
There is still a shortfall for family type housing. Our local authority seems to think the answer is to tear down old dilapidated shops and turn them into flats. Flats by their very nature attract single people. Only families can turn a space into a community in my opinion.

It's true that Council housing is a devolved issue so the Welsh and Scots can do things better than the Tories in England but the underlying issue is that Mrs Thatcher prevented Councils from using Council house sales income to build replacements and subsequent governments - Labour and Tory - failed to help Councils to build. Most English Councils are now grossly underfunded by the Tories and some are effectively bankrupt.

nanna8

I think social housing should mainly be for people who cannot work and earn sufficiently to survive for whatever reason. I don’t think it should be for anyone just wanting a cheap rent. In the old days a lot of people used to run very expensive cars because they were in subsidised housing and I think that is wrong. There are very few housing commission houses here, you have to be really,really on your uppers to get one.

Why do you believe council housing was subsidised? In fact, there are a number of factors and formulas, including scale, land value, initial financing costs, rents charged, maintenance needs and more, which determine the point at which social housing becomes profitable.

Right to buy, which requires discounts from LA funds, has lengthened that period considerably, as well as all the other damage it’s done.

Funny how we're independent of the UK but seem to have all the same problems, including a housing crisis.

This is a topic I know something about as I was an estate manager in Camden when Margaret Thatcher’s govt allowed sitting tenants to buy Council property. The biggest flaw in this was according to where a tenant lived. There were very valuable properties in NW5 which allowed the tenants family to club money together to buy their parents flats, do them up,and make large amounts of money by reselling the flat and buying accommodation outside London. However, if you were a tenant on a Council block your chances were much more limited. In other words it was like a lottery and I always felt sorry for those not in the best housing who never benefited from the right to buy. If you recall we had many migrants from Eastern Europe, especially from Poland who were at the top of the housing priority list as well as from war torn properties from the Middle East. Camden tenants were often hostile to this policy because their adult children stayed on the waiting list for years with little or no hope of getting a Council flat. I could give you all many examples of housing fraud at the time but what is the point? I smile at those posters who conveniently forget that over Tony Blair’s reign there was a distinct lack of any building of Council homes. Both parties were equally to blame but the GRANSNET political group seems to be largely Labour supporters which means that there are only few of us who can be bothered to argue with Grans who simply believe that all Conservatives are either dreadful misguided, uncaring people or Tory politicians who are all liars.

So anyone can get a council house ? They don’t have to have a disability or any sort of difficulty in earning a living ? Incredible, what a very rich country it must be.

I don't 'simply believe' that at all (about all Conservative voters or Tory politicians being liars, misguided or uncaring) but the fact remains that it was Thatcher who introduced the Right To Buy, which bought votes from people who made a profit. Of course the fact that the policy did not allow for the money to be ring-fenced to build more houses would mean that future governments couldn't do so. And yes, many people lost out, including those who couldn't afford the maintenance or new kitchens etc that neighbours who still rent get given, as well as those who have adult children still living with them, as there are no council houses for them to move to, and they can't afford to buy.

It was, IMO, a very cynical policy, which has caused untold misery after the initial euphoria for those who made a lot of money.

Wiser

50 percent of social housing in some areas, including London, go to non UK citizens. A few suggestions to make social housing fairer..regular checks to ensure the legal tenant hasn't moved on and is subletting for profit: when social housing tenants income goes above a certain level, they pay more rent:no further sales of social housing stock. I could go on...

I agree a million per cent on sub-letting. I well remember a TV investigative documentary where a young bloke was showing his ‘rental’ flat to a would-be tenant - this was the one he was renting from the council.
He blithely told the tenant that if he had any problems/ questions, he lived just across the landing - in a similar flat that he owned!
I wouldn’t mind betting that it’s not at all uncommon.

nanna8

So anyone can get a council house ? They don’t have to have a disability or any sort of difficulty in earning a living ? Incredible, what a very rich country it must be.

That used to be the case, before so many of the best ones were sold. They were the standard accommodation for working class families.

These days, only homeless people with children are realistically likely to get one, or older people who need to live in a small bungalow with adaptations, and there is little choice - you get what you are allocated, even if you don't like it.

It is not the case that 'anyone can get a council house'. The UK has a homelessness problem, and a lot of people are paying very high rents to private landlords, many of whom bought up and are profiting from the subsidised housing that was meant to provide secure tenancies for families.

Ali23

Racist propaganda from the right wing, IMO.. Slyly put, as the vast majority of social housing is housing associations etc. not council houses.

For me it’s both undesirable and unworkable

A friend used to run a large housing association in Greater London a few years ago. Their priorities had changed to concentrate on housing for frail elderly people, much of it purpose built. Existing housing was being sold to fund this. Apparently the largest proportion of people coming into their accommodation (other than the elderly) were transfers from existing social housing in other areas. Very few tenants new to social housing were being taken on.
I don't know where people imagine new social housing will come from? There are a few housing associations who are building genuinely new housing for social tenants, some do build large estates but these are funded by selling a large proportion of the new housing to owner occupiers, with only a relatively small proportion for genuinely new tenants of social housing.

Well said Anniel. I might add that there are many 3/4 bedroom council houses that have single occupancy or just a couple in them while many with young families are stuck in emergency accommodation with shared kitchens and bathrooms. There really should be some policy about only occupying the relevant sized house. So once the children fly the nest a downsize is required. In my terrace of 12 houses all 3 of the remaining 3 bedroom social housing have single or a couple occupancy. And my friend’s Dad lives alone in a 4 bedroom council house. A priority should be to build 1 bedroom council bungalows to help solve the crisis.

I can only see change coming if there are much stricter criteria for tenants in social housing. Many existing tenants would not fulfil the requirements today but I don't see housing associations or local authorities doing anything about this. Perhaps tenants who are taken on in future can be given a fixed term lease, then we won't have the situation which we do today where just one or two people are living in a three bedroom property or larger. Or even illegally subletting and living elsewhere.
If a tenant still fulfills the requirements for social housing at the end of that tenancy they could be transferred to a smaller property.
I live on an estate which was built to include social housing, some of which was sold off over the past few years. Existing tenants are mainly from other countries, many have been here for some years and do not appear to be working though they are of working age and have young children.