Britons ‘to be priority on council house lists’

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Well said cc. Exactly that!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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.

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).