Are our views always entrenched?

You are obviously not listening. I've said again and again that the present system is unfair, rushed, poorly thought out and unworkable. I totally agree that most people on benefits totally deserve empathy and support, and yet have had to listen to friends and relatives who live on council estates that I live in cloud cuckoo land, and that a far too big proportion are on the make in what way or another. I found it hard to believe- but they told me I was an utopian leftie, and didn't have a clue. so I get it from both sides, hurrah.

So entrenched views - all I am saying that even if the current Tory stupid system and ideas are wrong and unfair- it does NOT mean that we, all, irrespective of left or right, have to urgently think of intelligent and fair solutions. BTW we always shared 1 lounge with our lodgers, and 1 bathroom, that is for sure. Not all people find the idea of sharing a bathroom totally disgusting and abhorent. For SOME people, and carefully supported (yes it costs, but the savings would more than cover for this), it would be an excellent situation. For SOME. For others, a move to a community based estate made up of low-rise flats of bungalows, with communal gardens and proper infrastructure, will be another for SOME- and there may well be other good ideas and schemes that would suit others- so we better put our empathetic thinking caps on soonish.

An emphatic Soviet style NIET to any sensible and caring solutions is showing just that, entrenched views that will get us nowhere. Entrenched views are certainly not only on the right.

I wonder if my wonderful friend an neighbour who lives in a tiny post war council bungalow is not so happy about the situation, and feels it would be totally wrong for them to have extra bedroom/s for visiting relatives, is that she comes from France. Where all people in social housing are hoarded like cattle in high-rise flats in sink estates without proper infrastructure stuck on the edges of town- same for Germany, and most of Europe btw. Awful, and I've always been so proud about how much the UK system is-

I've been told over and over how unfair it would be for older people now finding themselves with 2 spare bedrooms (on average) to have to move. Agreed. But NOT ONE, NOT A SINGLE ONE - has come up with any solutions for the 1000s of families who have to live in bedsits and b&bs, now, this very moment. And this from people who have said many a time that large families should be supported and nurtured, as they are our future.

So, I am waiting. Please, tell me what to do with them- and how fair it is for them to live in such dreadful conditions.

BTW Greatnan, when I said life is not fair- it was not complaining. It was saying that although the fabulous uk welfare system was to provide nets and care, it was never about bringing about equality as such.

For a very long time, we in the UK have totally unfairly benefited from the 'brain drain' from third world countries. Doctors, nurses, business people, etc. So yes, i totally agree that the most wealthy should be taxed fairly and more proportionally than others, absolutely. But not to the extent that in this global economy we lose our most talented and able.

Money for welfare needs to come from somewhere - and those who escape to tax havens will not provide. Here in Switzerland we see 100s of young people from the UK arriving all the time - fed up with being taxed to the bone, and with much higher salaries and prospects here. It used to be a few a year - it is a deluge now. Good riddance - well yes - perhaps, but their taxes will certainly no longer go to the coffers to pay for the NHS, welfare, education. Others are off to Singapour, Hong Kong, or even ... Monaco. wherever they feel they are not being fleeced.

So, I''l keep trying to see all sides, trying to find fair ways to progress, and keep getting in the neck from some relatives for being an utopian and raving Leftie, and from some of you for being an uncaring and raving Tory (and I've always been a lot closer to the former than the latter).

I meant my fried is very happy about her tiny bungalow with a tiny garden..

But we have made suggestions - prefabs, empty office blocks, empty houses, emergency housebuilding programmes, etc. Here is another one - during the war houses were requisitioned for evacuees - perhaps holiday homes that are hardly ever used could requisitioned for homeless families.

Glad your friend is happy with her tiny bungalow and tiny garden. Many people in 2 or 3 bedroom council houses or high rise flats would also be happy, if they could just find such a thing. They can't afford to buy one and there are none to rent.

granjura this thread is peppered with suggestions of alternate ways of dealng with the problem of insufficient housing. I'm puzzled that you say no-one is coming up with suggestions.

I meant alternative, my pedant pals!

Are you really saying families should live in pre-fabs and ex industrial buildings on brown field sites - whilst older people (NOT elderly) should stay in over-large council houses with gardens? And you call that fair, emphatic and caring?

Elegran - yes we know, there are too few, and perhaps none, smaller houses, bungalows and suitable low-rise flats - this has been agreed umpteen times. Which is why we have to look at urgent solutions, a whole variety - including a building programme, and as said on the news last night, re-furbishing empty properties, etc.

But the suggestion that families in bedsit should be sent to live in ghettos in old industrial estates and office buildings- is hard to take.

So why not build prefabs and offer them to people who are in houses that are too big for them? Don't call them prefabs, though, call then high-tech flat-pack housing.

Why not turn office blocks into blocks of flats in the centre of town or near it?

Why not get initiatives going to partner industrialists looking for charitable kudos with councils in need of more suitable housing stock?

Why not read posts and see what viable suggestions others have made instead of just repeating your own posts and assuming that everyone else has said "F* the familes, do nothing about anything?"

Why should decently renovated buildings be a barrier simply because they were once inadequate or derelict? I live in what was a two up, two down tied cottage, with outside toilet and a tin bath in the chicken's outhouse. It's not like that now. It was done up!

Come on....own up! Who suggested ghettoes? Where did you read that, *granjura?'

Flats in former warehouses in Manchester sell for upwards of £500,000 so the rich obviously don't mind them!
What about my suggestion about requisitioning under-used holiday homes?
Prefabs were very acceptable little homes - several of my friends lived in them and I really envied them.

Prefabs these days are an advance on those. They come with all wiring and plumbing built in, state-of-the art-kitchens and bathrooms and the latest heating, and they look great too. Best of all, they can be put up and habitable in a few days.

My neighbour's daughter and fiancé have just moved into a flat in a converted mill. I considered this myself when I downsized, but preferred to have a garden - a decision that has backfired in the last two years!
Owing to the contraction in the Services, there will be disused military estate which could be used to house families, if the MoD agree to release it. Sometimes these will be well away from towns and cities but might form the basis for 'new town' developments with schools, surgeries and shops.

I can't find the post where any of us said 'Whatever you devise, the answer is still no'.
There are streets and streets of perfectly sound terraced houses in Greater Manchester which could easily be refurbished, but which are boarded up. Sometimes the site is earmarked for a new Tesco.

Any development will become a ghetto if it is badly designed and/or the people living in it turn it into one.

How about the ground floor of an office block being coverted to commercial units and the upper floors to residential units? One commercial unit let out affordably to a nursery/creche for working mothers? Other utilities being encouraged to take up residence.

Can't sit here putting the world to rights and arguing potential solutions any longer. I am off to do something more constructive. Have fun.

I realised the contempt in which some professionals hold the 'lower orders' when I heard the then chairman of the RIBA say that he thought concrete tower blocks were very aesthetically pleasing. He was asked where he lived. Yes, in a 15th Century cottage in Rutland.

Agreed that old industrial units and even prefabs can be done in such a way that they are great and desirable - but I'd still say that they would be more suitable for older and younger people than for those with families. So may be we still have to look at 'incentivising' those who no longer need the space to move there, to make space for families.

I am between snorkels, but I am going for lunch and will be back later to see which of our suggestions meets with approval!

High Streets are littered with boarded up shops. Instead of trying to turn the clock back twenty years why not convert them into flats? A friend of mine has just downsized from a tied three bedroomed house to a rented ground floor flat, close to the shops and she's never been happier.

Elegran a good example of your suggestion is The Dwellings, a massive old four-sided tenement block with an inside square in Ancoats, Manchester, which was a run-down area with lots of derelict buildings. It's been transformed as part of New Islington, and many of the old tenement dwellings are now Artisan's homes for single people, small families and professional couples. Some are still owned by a housing assocation, some buy to rent, and some owned outright by the occupiers. Right in the city centre. 20 years ago, there were only 20 or 30 people living in the city centre, now there are thousands, many in converted mills, warehouses, tenements and terraced houses.

Forgot to add, the ground floor row facing the main road is given over to shops.

What would 'incentivise' you to move out of your home so that more people could live in it, jura? Whatever it is, I expect the same would work for other people too. Do tell... <waits eagerly for reply>

Oh, by the way, before I go. I can't answer for anyone else's posts, but I have never advocated shutting homeless families away in ghettos. I have suggested that there are empty buildings of all kinds in cities which could be converted into accommodation. the nature of that accommodation and which people could live in it was not mentioned, just the fact that it would increase the housing stock. Not reusing buildings is waste.

Likewise, I have not said that it is a wonderful thing that people live in houses that are bigger than they need - or indeed want, in a lot of cases - but that if councils feel that it would be a good idea for them to move on, there needs to be somewhere for them to go, and an incentive for them to go there

An incentive, not a draconian policy from a controlling power that tells them that they are selfish to want to stay and that they have no lasting connection with what has been their home for a long time. Not everyone feels that connection to the building they live in and the neighbours and neighbourhood they know and love, but it is very real. Lodgers? That needs careful handling too. The relationship can be abused in either direction.