Britons ‘to be priority on council house lists’

We seem to have a dearth of council housing in the areas where people want to live e.g. London. Whether reserving new councils for people who are British will work is another question. How do you define British? Born in this country? Acquired British citizenship? Ethnicity?
Anyway, it would be excellent if the government and councils could actually build some suitable social housing.

Well said cc. Exactly that!

I see it as all being about the building industry. I own my now ex-council house and it really makes me laugh when I hear people say I am to blame for the shortage of council houses. Snobbery is the cause of the shortage. We have about 250.000 families technically seen as homeless and about 250000 empty houses. Whats the problem.

Where I live most of the flats houses and maisonettes are privately owned by non white British. For example, a house on my terrace is owned by a very nice Turkish man who now owns 7 properties in SW London, all ex-council. He thinks I am a nice English woman and he tells me his landlord problems and I say "Oh dear" to everything because I am a very nice English lady. Just 2 years ago he came to ask me how to get white tenants and stop "blacks" keep coming round to view his properties. He has all Europeans and a few Turkish "refugees" he has imported and who cannot be deported because he always makes sure there is a disabled child who needs medical help and so cannot be deported.. I said "Oh dear" and advised him to take his problem to a police station and ask their advise. He has not spoken to me since. I wonder why?

Anyone can buy property in this country and that is what should stopped. I think only fully British people should be able to own property in this country, and not those two faced "dual nationality" types etc.

People who own 2, 3, 4, 5 properties are landlords and can go to hell in a handcart. If people want an investment they can buy shares in a football club or a water company etc. Look up the word "Rachmann" for a definition of landlords you people with your property portfolios.

There is no need for any more council estates for the building indusrty to make a quick bob or two at public expense and for the pseudo posh to stick their noses up at. There is no shortage of housing. It needs rationing.

There is an official organisation which buys land for housing, puts in infrastructure, (roads, services) and then sells to developers with the stipulation that a certain proportion HAS to be affordable housing. At planning level , local objections to "affordable" housing often stop cheaper houses being built NIMBY.
We have M Thatcher to thank for the shortage of council houses as Councils were prevented from building new houses to replace the ones sold. The money raised from sales went to the government, not the councils

My mum and dad bought their council house around 1970. My outspoken DH said it wasn't right that council houses were being sold. My parents took it personally and held it against him for a long time. I believe he was right. Far too many properties were sold off.

A friend of mine always spouted "property is theft" until Thatcher decided selling council houses was the way forward.He then bought his 3 bed semi detached for £11500 !!

The Scottish government stopped the sales a few years ago and have built @120,000 social rent homes in the past few years .Councils are given the funding and if they dont build new homes its taken off them and given to councils who will .
Our area is awash with much needed new houses and flats ,all lovely with solar panels and energy efficient.
If your government are on your side they'll do what you voted for them to do...Tories and social housing...not in the same book never mind on the same page

There are people in social housing who would be happy to downsize but this is easier said than done. My nephew has a 2 bedroomed HA flat and would be willing to downsize to a single bed one. He registered his interest in doing so several years ago but there are none available.

Please note that of I had not bought my council house I would have been forced to move out long ago. Why should I move when I had already moved 28 times as a serviceman's wife. House should be homes note there to make someone a profit. And why should people who rent have to be herded into corals for the scum. We should all mixed in together. That is what my parents taught me when I grew up in a family of 4 in a 5 bed-roomed house and a second home on the Surrey Hampshire borders. The attitude of so many people is put the scum on sub-standard council estates and bung the immigrants in with them...unless they are doctors of course in which case they are welcome and the peasants where ever they come from can go without medical services.

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...

This is a particular problem in London according to a labour MP who was interviewed this morning - sorry his name escapes me and I didn’t see all of the interview. It seems that a lot of legal tenants have moved out and are subletting for a tidy profit, including immigrants who have gone back to their home country. He said that this was the kind of thing that the Tories were trying to capitalise on in blaming immigrants for the woes of social housing. It’s certainly a factor, if true, but it’s by no means the whole story.

Cycorax

We seem to have a dearth of council housing in the areas where people want to live e.g. London. Whether reserving new councils for people who are British will work is another question. How do you define British? Born in this country? Acquired British citizenship? Ethnicity?
Anyway, it would be excellent if the government and councils could actually build some suitable social housing.

We're in greater London and most of our newer social housing tenants on this estate seem to be from what was eastern europe so presumably came in legally and acquired British citizenship? There are a few who seem to be from the middle east so may have come in as refugees, also a few Africans. And a small number of elderly English tenants who have been here for many years.
I agree about the dearth of social housing in areas where people want to live. If they have skills that are in demand I can see that they need to live in these areas, but if they are not working or don't have the skills that are needed then they don't need to be housed there, whether they want to be or not.
The time has surely come when people seeking social housing have to be given priority if they will be doing a job for which there is high demand: education, NHS work, public transport driving, carers and similar jobs. Obviously this is in addition to the priority that their family situation necessitates.

stillstanding I dont know if its the case south of the border but once you have a council house you are able to stay in it for life.When we got married in 1975 we were allocated a brand new 3 bed semi with its own garage/lockup across the street ,we moved out after 8 years to a flat near to our business and the school we wanted our daughter to attend.
Many of the people who moved in at the same time as we did as young marrieds are still in those houses and as far as I'm concerned there,s no reason why they shouldn't be ..its their HOME .Council houses are not subsidised ...they should be economicaly viable just not at the inflated rents we see in some private lets . They are also used as collateral for financing council projects...or should be

Stillstanding your posts come across as very bitter.

There are plenty of good landlords, they are not all bad.

If all the private landlords were to disappear do you think that would really help the housing situation.

Mrs Nemo if tenants want to buy their council home then it shoukd be at tge full value, none of the discount, up to 40%, that was implemented in the 80s right to buy. However , how long would it take and where would another council house be built using the funds from the sale.

paddyann54

stillstanding I dont know if its the case south of the border but once you have a council house you are able to stay in it for life.When we got married in 1975 we were allocated a brand new 3 bed semi with its own garage/lockup across the street ,we moved out after 8 years to a flat near to our business and the school we wanted our daughter to attend.
Many of the people who moved in at the same time as we did as young marrieds are still in those houses and as far as I'm concerned there,s no reason why they shouldn't be ..its their HOME .Council houses are not subsidised ...they should be economicaly viable just not at the inflated rents we see in some private lets . They are also used as collateral for financing council projects...or should be

I agree with you in principle paddyann54, but I can understand why young families with children feel aggrieved if they are paying out over £1000 a month for a private rental whilst a single pensioner is paying £500 for a council house with three bedrooms which they don’t fully utilise.
The shame is that there don’t seem to be good quality homes for single people with a garden, particularly in rural areas and it must be heartbreaking for older people to have no option but to leave their home, their village and their garden to live in a soulless one bedroom flat in the nearest town.

Other than being a refugee I doubt if there are many countries that offer social housing to anyone moving to a country. Moving to Canada I had to find my own accommodation and when returning, again had to find somewhere to live myself.

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’.

I think the trade union leader you are thinking of is Bob Crowe who lived in a council house just because he could, despite earning in excess of £100k. He died in 2014

a 3 bed private rental here is still around £550, there really aren't many aggreived young families.There will be the odd one on FB complaining about WHO gets the newbuilds but thats human nature Theres always somebody who wont be happy
There are 3 one bed flats on rightmove for under 60K 2 bedroom flats at @70K so housing is ,in the main,still affordable for young folk in this area ,my 20 year old GS has just agreed a mortgage and has a flat in mind

paddyann54

a 3 bed private rental here is still around £550, there really aren't many aggreived young families.There will be the odd one on FB complaining about WHO gets the newbuilds but thats human nature Theres always somebody who wont be happy
There are 3 one bed flats on rightmove for under 60K 2 bedroom flats at @70K so housing is ,in the main,still affordable for young folk in this area ,my 20 year old GS has just agreed a mortgage and has a flat in mind

It depends where you live though, I don’t think what you describe is typical. I just checked online, there’s actually only one property advertised for private rent reasonably close to me and it’s £825pcm. You wouldn’t find anywhere here to buy under £150k, in the worst part of a town - and I live in rural Wales, which is not an expensive part of the country. What we are finding is that lots of people want to move here for the lifestyle, particularly since lockdown, and the demand for the local rental market is phenomenal. The council are still building homes, but the waiting lists are long, so people private rent whilst they wait for council housing to become available.

sundowngirl

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’.

I think the trade union leader you are thinking of is Bob Crowe who lived in a council house just because he could, despite earning in excess of £100k. He died in 2014

Why shouldn't he though?

If council estates are not to become ghettos of poverty, shouldn't their tenants' earnings be irrelevant?

If all people who rent privately went on a rent strike many landlords would have to sell and the market would crash. That is dreamland for me. What a laugh!! The courts could not cope. with all the evictions. Young families could afford houses. There are enough houses for everyone already without pouring concrete onto the earth for more and more "estates". All the problems are known about. Blame anyone and everyone except greedy people and their "portfolios".

Yes I am bitter. Thats because after all those moves as a service mans wife we were not allowed a mortgage because. they said, we were not reliable mortgage payers. The truth was that in 1969 and 1970 servicemen were refusing to reengage because they did not sign up to be armed police in N.I. No one cared. No one listened. It took us 4 years to get a permanent home only for attitudes to change yet again and now council tenants are expected to move according to the L.A needs. And if council tenants ever point the finger to a house across the road or down the way and say that is an illegal let to immigrants we got called racist. I worked voluntarily on my estate regarding housing problems and I was always amazed at what people got up to. The biggest laugh was that at the same time I worked for the DSS! I never reported anyone because I would have been called a racist and could have been evicted with my children. The illegal immigrant tenants were always rehoused when they were finally found out; not so for locals, white or non-white.

There should be more social housing.Yes I was one that bought mine, otherwise I would never have been a home owner.
Back in 1931 when my granny moved into her council house it was a thing of pride, gardens were kept neat, windows cleaned etc. Nowadays it’s just the opposite, the estates are run down, gardens full of rubbish, I really don’t think it matters if the tenant is of any particular nationality. Would prioritising British people not be seen as racist.
I have no problems with whoever is my neighbour, I try not to bother anyone but I think the councils need to keep a close eye on whoever they give the houses to. They should have references from prospective tenants and keep a strict eye on anti social behaviour . Also, the most well cared for homes are the ones privately owned. Does that not speak for itself

Stillstanding I find your posts racist on many levels.

Oh and we are a Forces Family

Council tenants don't have life long security any more. I think it's every 5 years they have to resign for their tenancy. If they haven't kept to their Tenancy Agreement they risk eviction. In general there aren't enough houses or even flats for people who can't afford to buy. A lot of Housing associations stock are poorly maintained. Where I live at the moment quite a lot of new HA and some Council flats have been built. Some of these are still being bought under the Right to Buy.

Casdon

paddyann54

a 3 bed private rental here is still around £550, there really aren't many aggreived young families.There will be the odd one on FB complaining about WHO gets the newbuilds but thats human nature Theres always somebody who wont be happy
There are 3 one bed flats on rightmove for under 60K 2 bedroom flats at @70K so housing is ,in the main,still affordable for young folk in this area ,my 20 year old GS has just agreed a mortgage and has a flat in mind

It depends where you live though, I don’t think what you describe is typical. I just checked online, there’s actually only one property advertised for private rent reasonably close to me and it’s £825pcm. You wouldn’t find anywhere here to buy under £150k, in the worst part of a town - and I live in rural Wales, which is not an expensive part of the country. What we are finding is that lots of people want to move here for the lifestyle, particularly since lockdown, and the demand for the local rental market is phenomenal. The council are still building homes, but the waiting lists are long, so people private rent whilst they wait for council housing to become available.

A one-bedroom flat here which is the cheapest on the market at the moment is on the market for 'offers over £170,000'. The cheapest house (2 bedrooms but very small) is £225,000.

Rents are very high too, £825 pcm for a flat, £1,500 pcm for a 3 bedroomed house but very few available.

I'm sure people in London, the South-East and bigger cities would find that cheap, that's why they are relocating.

The two bedroom flat next door to me has been rented for £1000 per month. Renting is not cheap now.