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Grant Shapps is a nice chap! Personable, likeable and emollient - I've seen him walk on stage in front of a hostile conference crowd and spread calm like honey on morning toast. He's very much a man of the future in the Tory party and is being encouraged into the limelight as the "acceptable face of the Tories". Helped by the presence of the Liberal Democrats the "Nasty Party" moves into a new era in which Thatcherism is but a distant memory and it attempts to become the caring sharing party of the 21st Century.
So just why is this minister pursuing policies even more damaging that Margaret Thatcher ever dreamt of? Thatcher, the bête noir of social housing. Even she didn't suggest that anyone who has made a success of their life should be forced to move on from their Council estate like some unwelcome guest who has outstayed their welcome.
My family moved into a Council house when I was four years old. They moved out, into a house we had built , when I was eleven. We moved on and upwards, just as Grant Shapps is suggesting. But others stayed, and our street was a mixture of professions and situations. 50 years later it's a community embracing success and failure, wealth and poverty and a mixture of social housing and freeholds. It takes a long time to build a community. We were there at the start but it's much better now, after more than 50 years of development. There's a new community centre and a Multi-Use Games Area. The young mothers are now grandmothers and the estate has seen at least three generations pass through.
How desperately damaging it will be if we move on anyone who becomes wealthy, whether or not they want to go. We will be creating ghettos of failure. Social housing will equal lack of ambition and define those who are stuck in a second class environment. Instead of rewarding success we will be moving that success on to another nearby community.
That's not how it should be. Social housing, formerly Council housing, was meant to be for hard working families who didn't have capital to buy their own homes. It was for people who were successful in their lives but who hadn't been born expecting an inheritance to pay for a deposit on a house. There was a vision behind Council housing and many politicians worked to make that vision a reality. Mistakes were made, many mistakes. But there were also many successes and fine communities were created in many areas of Britain.
The Thatcher "Right to Buy" was immensely damaging to social housing but at least it didn't kick the upwardly mobile off the estates, but rather encouraged them to stay in the homes they now owned, improving both their houses and their communities.
What we now need is a new commitment to social housing. A commitment to build the hundreds of thousands of houses we need to look after the "in betweeners", the people who don't currently qualify for social housing but can't afford to purchase their own homes. The workers who hold the future of our country in their hands.
We do a fairly good job of housing the very needy but fail miserably the very people who this Coalition government profess to champion. The nurses, the teachers, the police and the rest of those hard working essential workers who can now only afford to live in certain limited areas of our country. We're storing up a catastrophe to be inherited by the next generation.
So, please minister, you've impressed many of us with your ability to listen, but are you really hearing our message on the future of social housing in Britain?
Follow Peter Thornton on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peterthornton10
After all - I work hard, but don't want to buy into an overvalued housing market. Being relatively successful, and therefore not eligible for social housing, I find myself subject to the private letting market, and the whim of a 'buy-to-let' landlord. This means my security of tenure is limited to the one month assured shorthold tenancy notice period .
I fail to understand why I should (directly or indirectly) pay for others to have more 'housing security' than myself? Surely better ways to engender more socially diverse communities would be to:
- increase the interleaving of private and social housing in a given single street
- take steps to encourage the rebalancing of the North / South divide, increasing equality of opportunity
- improve the standard of state education to prevent 'ghettoisation' due to poor local schooling
Also, on a more philosophical level, I believe social housing should be a last resort in order to prevent homelessness, not a crutch that discourages endeavour. Also, in the face of the crippling deficit bestowed on us by the previous Labour government (unchallenged by a toothless Tory then opposition), surely it is even more important than ever to reserve financial aid to those truly
Over the years social housing has become a farce and many have taken advantage of the mismanagement of the system. I agree there should be cheaper housing for people that can’t afford to buy a property, but I don't agree that it should be a "free for all".
I’m lucky enough to own my own flat, but I’ve worked hard to get it. On the other hand my upstairs neighbours are a young family with 3 children. The parents have never worked, even before the credit crunch hit and they are basically living of the state. They were letting their dog’s soil our front yard and I had to fight 2 years with the council before they did anything. They weren't aloud dogs in the first place, but the council turned a blind eye as usual and I had to live with the consequences. I live on a nice street, but unfortunately I can see the stereo types all around me.
Why not let people who received long term benefits "work" for this and help out in the community through volunteer work or even clean the streets? Given people money and housing for nothing is to temping for people not to take advantage off and if we continue any longer like this, we are going to be in serious trouble...if we aren't already
But as you are socially mobile, here's a thought. Why not sell up and move, or even better, donate your flat back to the social housing pool.
No, didn't think so...
I have never been in social housing myself and the nice Victorian maisonette flat I purchased was from another private owner, so I didn't get it from the council as you were implying and I've never lived in a council flat. I've worked my way up and I did clean tables till 2am to start with, so I didn't need to ask for benefits. I just don't understand the attitude that you can ask something for nothing and expect other people to keep paying for this.
And by the way....I am selling up and moving on with my life.
You would do better to lay these concerns at the door of your dear leader, Nick Clegg.
You are the 'Nasty Party's fig leaf. ONLY because of you do they get to butcher England's public services and sink generations of young adults into decades of tuition debt with a limited mandate.
At least the Tories are honest. So with respect,
Stick it.
Sincerely etc etc.
Secondly, your argument that ghettoes will be created is about twenty years to late because most council estates as was are now areas of mixed housing and around where I live you can only tell the council houses by the level of garden neglect. Maybe they are so hard-working, they have no time to do their gardens? No. They are post-industrial depressed, ill-educated marginalised self-harming lousy neighbours with low self-esteem.
What we need on my estate is a workfare scheme where everybody on benefit is required to keep their front garden in good order and their back garden under efficient and effective cultivation of vegetables. And for those who do not conform and comply, removal to flats without gardens and bringing in of new tenants who clearly understand their obligations.
If we are to break the cycle of deprivation, we have to get people off their backsides. Would you support a scheme to provide considerable assistance to develop gardening in deprived schemes?
I've just moved in an ex-council house, and it just happened the council was doing a Decent Home program on the estate, fitting double glazing and such to all the council properties, so it was easy to see who is council and who is private (about 3/4 of the houses are private).
My council-tenant next door neighbours have well tended gardens, the private one on the other side is literally a jungle (don't know if it's owner occupied or rented out), and one of the only house without double-glazing now.
just saying..
I am only describing what I see. Should I lie to avoid stereotyping?
You opinion on the question with which I closed my comment would be useful. After all, that is why we post comments, isn't it? To exchange opinions?
Moving ever further into a service sector economy is great for the 'clever' people who earn good money as accountants, business managers etc, but those who earned their money lifting and carrying things are excluded from this success. This is where jobs are needed
You seem to be suggesting that we need more jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled. Quite right. My proposal provides a pathway to that goal.
Do not underestimate how difficult it is for the long-term unemployed to become employable. They need stepping stones to that goal. This way we can provide them with part-time work, offer a better diet, and improve the living environment.
The production of food does create wealth. Food prices are rising. many people on benefits are - for the first time - experiencing real poverty. And almost all have unhealthy diets.
Social housing was there to provide affordable accommodation for those who hadn't the means to buy. Margaret Thatcher's right to buy policy was just more of her legalised theft really. Virtually nobody could have afforded or would have wanted to buy their homes, had not most of the Council Housing Stock been flogged off at knock-down prices. And to top it off they forbad Councils from re-investingthe money from such sales in replenishing the housing stock with new buildings. Like much else that took place in the 1980's, what we had was really a con-trick perpetrated on us. A con that we are paying the price for BIG-TIME today actually. From the Utilities sell-off to the squandering of North Sea Oil and Gas, we've been left in the mire. As always it was prompted by short-term greed. Tory philosophy in a nutshell.
The part of the jigsaw which has been removed and should be replaced is where the income from council housing can be used to fund new developments.
At the moment there is a shortfall of around 20,000 new properties a year between supply and demand, unless local authorities are encouraged back into the property development market by allowing them to reinvest the income in new builds (or using the cheaper option of actually bringing the tens of thousands of unoccupied dwellings back into the market) we will never bridge the gap.
Decent housing is a fundamental building block in any properly functioning society and we are going to have to find some way of replacing the council houses that were moved into the private sector by the right to buy.
Secondly, if he complains that the Tories are making cuts that Thatcher could only dream of then he has himself muddled. It is the Liberals that have enabled such action as they have formed the Coalition. If he wants to see a party that opposes such action, then maybe the gentleman should defect to Labour, as we will not be making any cuts of that nature.
Let me make myself clear, if he doesn't want to enable Thatcherite cuts then he is in the wrong party altogether!