If there is a housing shortage, why has our local council ..
Discussion
... allowed a property mogul to buy up a whole new development of flats? These would have been perfect for first time buyers. However, the clever peeps in town have allowed the whole block to be sold to a private buyer.
So, I guess they will all be put up for a high rental fee, and the sort of person who would benefit from this type of property misses out.
I simply cannot understand it. Our council seem hell bent on building everywhere. They keep bleating on about the shortage of affordable homes for buyers etc. Yet, they allow this to happen?
Ridiculous. Anyone else seeing this happen?
So, I guess they will all be put up for a high rental fee, and the sort of person who would benefit from this type of property misses out.
I simply cannot understand it. Our council seem hell bent on building everywhere. They keep bleating on about the shortage of affordable homes for buyers etc. Yet, they allow this to happen?
Ridiculous. Anyone else seeing this happen?
Rotten to the core the whole bloody thing.
Council (social) housing should be for hard working lower paid families, the unwell, and people who generally deserve it
Not a bloody free ticket for the work shy baby making losers
Here in Southampton they have knocked down a housing estate and done nothing to replace it, and a bit further up the road they have build thousands of flats, all being wrecked by the locals who don't deserve them.
Of course it can then be sold of under the right to buy scheme, all of a sudden no one asks where the money comes for for this, the people who couldn't afford a normal rent all of a sudden can buy, it's wrong
We have a lot of youngens (hopefully) looking for work, who are being paid to do nothing, we have a shortage of housing
If only we could add those two together and come up with something
Of course, a lot of people blame immigrants - I don't know enough about that, but the local home grown lazy breeders seem bad to me
Council (social) housing should be for hard working lower paid families, the unwell, and people who generally deserve it
Not a bloody free ticket for the work shy baby making losers
Here in Southampton they have knocked down a housing estate and done nothing to replace it, and a bit further up the road they have build thousands of flats, all being wrecked by the locals who don't deserve them.
Of course it can then be sold of under the right to buy scheme, all of a sudden no one asks where the money comes for for this, the people who couldn't afford a normal rent all of a sudden can buy, it's wrong
We have a lot of youngens (hopefully) looking for work, who are being paid to do nothing, we have a shortage of housing
If only we could add those two together and come up with something
Of course, a lot of people blame immigrants - I don't know enough about that, but the local home grown lazy breeders seem bad to me
They are the council. They could have made something up. 
I don't know what they could have done. However, I find it bloomin annoying that they constantly bleat on about a lack of affordable homes. Yet demolish what was an old government bulding, stick x amount of flats on it, then let it get sold in this way.
Anyway, if there is no law against this, then I guess it's tough luck. Just makes a mockery of their supposed drive to increase affordable home stock.
I don't know what they could have done. However, I find it bloomin annoying that they constantly bleat on about a lack of affordable homes. Yet demolish what was an old government bulding, stick x amount of flats on it, then let it get sold in this way.
Anyway, if there is no law against this, then I guess it's tough luck. Just makes a mockery of their supposed drive to increase affordable home stock.
Years ago, there was a lovely little area that had a little fishing pond on it and that was a designated site for travellers, and was a nice recreational area. Then the council fenced it off, filled in the pone, and stuck up a sign inviting business to build an office in the area. Nobody did, as there is a large business park less than a mile away. This place became nasty. So nasty for an A-level photography project on urban decay. Now the council are moaning about the lack of brownfield sites to build on, which this is now. It is close to good transport links, is piped for water and sewage and power, has multiple schools nearby and is close to said large business park yet the council don't use it. It baffles me.
For reference, it is this site. There is even a paved junction leading into the site!
For reference, it is this site. There is even a paved junction leading into the site!
Evanivitch said:
Spare tyre said:
R
Not a bloody free ticket for the work shy baby making losers
So the babies of such losers should grow up homeless and in squalor?Not a bloody free ticket for the work shy baby making losers
However if a strict set of guidelines about having to live in a matron run style complex where you couldn't sit around eating crisps all day came along, I'm pretty sure the problem would improve pretty quickly.
See lots of examples where stroppy teenager wants a free flat but that will never happen, but it will if they get up the duff
No easy answer I guess
funkyrobot said:
They are the council. They could have made something up.
I don't know what they could have done. However, I find it bloomin annoying that they constantly bleat on about a lack of affordable homes. Yet demolish what was an old government bulding, stick x amount of flats on it, then let it get sold in this way.
Anyway, if there is no law against this, then I guess it's tough luck. Just makes a mockery of their supposed drive to increase affordable home stock.
If the council are the developer and they sold all flats to a single buyer in one go it could almost be a sale and lease back approach...........albeit sounds very bent. Council builds block of flats for total cost of "X", buyer purchases all of them for cost of "X + a few % and then council work with buyer to fill flats with council tenants and pay buyer "Y" per flat per month via benefits system in perpetuity.I don't know what they could have done. However, I find it bloomin annoying that they constantly bleat on about a lack of affordable homes. Yet demolish what was an old government bulding, stick x amount of flats on it, then let it get sold in this way.
Anyway, if there is no law against this, then I guess it's tough luck. Just makes a mockery of their supposed drive to increase affordable home stock.
Sounds bent as a
holes to me. My take on this, is there's 2 issues here:
a) an issue around planning consent, and what can or can't be dictated by the planning authority
b) the need for social / low cost housing, and how to meet demand.
Planning Consent:
- councils can use their local plan to specify a certain percentage of affordable housing (or cash in lieu of this). But often its a negotiation. If there's not enough "profit" in the scheme, a developer will just walk away. Why would they? They're not a charity.
- Councils in the SE want the housing desperately because a) there is a shortage hammering their temporary accomodation revenue budgets, b) they get grant funding for new builds and c) they get ongoing funding via council tax. By 2020, most district councils will have to live off local tax income, even facing "negative" grant funding from central government, so this is a big deal to them.
- So the amount of social housing gets watered down. Councils should perhaps be stronger, but whilst they're good at parking tickets and enforcing recycling rules (on a good day), they can't really go toe to toe with multi national developers for long before running out of cash, expertise or political support.
- As far as I know, planners have absolutely no power to mandate who can or can't buy the subsequent property. Ok, perhaps there's some provision for land for traveller sites. Any such move I reckon would be inconsistent with rules on discrimination. I believe Siddiq Khan tied himself up in knots trying to limit the overseas investors in London property, before an advisor told him to shut up and just get back to smiling for selfies.
- It's a laudable idea, but even if you get past discriminating against x,y,z group in favour of locals, it would be impossilbe to enforce going forward. Any sort of restrictive covenant would see prices drop, and developers would not accept that (see first point)
And on to the social housing:
- making someone homeless to solve homelessness sounds silly. It could be the first group are expected to move elsewhere in the private rented sector. But there is plenty of cost shunting that goes on, particuarly between the NHS and Councils, so it's entirely likely this is the case.
- The realities of the market is that property is an investment, and there's little cash in affordable housing compared to executive flats or rabbit hutches that are being thrown up on every flood plain and railway junction in SE England.
- I can reveal that the Council I work for has - to deal with this exact problem - established a housing development company, specifically set up to develop small, spare, brownfield sites to build predominantly social housing for "our hard working residents". Even so, there will have to be some private sales to make the project affordable.
- Councils can generally access funding at a low cost of capital, but we're quite risk averse, have limited powers to trade, don't have spare revenue funding sloshing around to pump prime feasibility, marketing and develop plans in advance. Not forgetting as soon as we build housing to add to our housing stock, the council can be forced to sell them off at a huge loss...and the rents we can charge are being reduced by the Government
- I can also add anicdotally that our anti-fraud team do challenge long term jobless social housing tenants in receipt of benefits about where exactly their deposit and funds come from to "right to buy" their council house?
In some cases, they've lied to the mortgage company about their income (who don't seem to care) and in other cases, the fraud team has just been told by the DCLG to stop blocking the sale and get on with it, as the dogma of RTB trumps other stuff like fraud.
- Who should get priority for social housing: I'll leave that for the Daily Mail comments section, but it's worth pointing out a lot of housing benefit goes to working families in the private rented sector. And many of the residents of our housing stock are in work (albeit lower paid).
This is on top of the working tax credit and council tax benefit paid to the same group. Workshy apart, average working wages just aren't covering the cost of living in the SE / London. This is not a sustainable position for the housing market, or in fact the economy as a whole.
- The only change I can see coming is that in 15-25 years time, the baby boomers will have passed away, the Public Sector (ie councils & NHS) will be on the downside of the absolutely monumental medical and social care costs that we'll face over this time, and there will be a lot of empty, old houses available. What will be left of the economy, god knows...
Ian
a) an issue around planning consent, and what can or can't be dictated by the planning authority
b) the need for social / low cost housing, and how to meet demand.
Planning Consent:
- councils can use their local plan to specify a certain percentage of affordable housing (or cash in lieu of this). But often its a negotiation. If there's not enough "profit" in the scheme, a developer will just walk away. Why would they? They're not a charity.
- Councils in the SE want the housing desperately because a) there is a shortage hammering their temporary accomodation revenue budgets, b) they get grant funding for new builds and c) they get ongoing funding via council tax. By 2020, most district councils will have to live off local tax income, even facing "negative" grant funding from central government, so this is a big deal to them.
- So the amount of social housing gets watered down. Councils should perhaps be stronger, but whilst they're good at parking tickets and enforcing recycling rules (on a good day), they can't really go toe to toe with multi national developers for long before running out of cash, expertise or political support.
- As far as I know, planners have absolutely no power to mandate who can or can't buy the subsequent property. Ok, perhaps there's some provision for land for traveller sites. Any such move I reckon would be inconsistent with rules on discrimination. I believe Siddiq Khan tied himself up in knots trying to limit the overseas investors in London property, before an advisor told him to shut up and just get back to smiling for selfies.
- It's a laudable idea, but even if you get past discriminating against x,y,z group in favour of locals, it would be impossilbe to enforce going forward. Any sort of restrictive covenant would see prices drop, and developers would not accept that (see first point)
And on to the social housing:
- making someone homeless to solve homelessness sounds silly. It could be the first group are expected to move elsewhere in the private rented sector. But there is plenty of cost shunting that goes on, particuarly between the NHS and Councils, so it's entirely likely this is the case.
- The realities of the market is that property is an investment, and there's little cash in affordable housing compared to executive flats or rabbit hutches that are being thrown up on every flood plain and railway junction in SE England.
- I can reveal that the Council I work for has - to deal with this exact problem - established a housing development company, specifically set up to develop small, spare, brownfield sites to build predominantly social housing for "our hard working residents". Even so, there will have to be some private sales to make the project affordable.
- Councils can generally access funding at a low cost of capital, but we're quite risk averse, have limited powers to trade, don't have spare revenue funding sloshing around to pump prime feasibility, marketing and develop plans in advance. Not forgetting as soon as we build housing to add to our housing stock, the council can be forced to sell them off at a huge loss...and the rents we can charge are being reduced by the Government
- I can also add anicdotally that our anti-fraud team do challenge long term jobless social housing tenants in receipt of benefits about where exactly their deposit and funds come from to "right to buy" their council house?
In some cases, they've lied to the mortgage company about their income (who don't seem to care) and in other cases, the fraud team has just been told by the DCLG to stop blocking the sale and get on with it, as the dogma of RTB trumps other stuff like fraud.
- Who should get priority for social housing: I'll leave that for the Daily Mail comments section, but it's worth pointing out a lot of housing benefit goes to working families in the private rented sector. And many of the residents of our housing stock are in work (albeit lower paid).
This is on top of the working tax credit and council tax benefit paid to the same group. Workshy apart, average working wages just aren't covering the cost of living in the SE / London. This is not a sustainable position for the housing market, or in fact the economy as a whole.
- The only change I can see coming is that in 15-25 years time, the baby boomers will have passed away, the Public Sector (ie councils & NHS) will be on the downside of the absolutely monumental medical and social care costs that we'll face over this time, and there will be a lot of empty, old houses available. What will be left of the economy, god knows...
Ian
Write to your MP.
They will look into it, poke the council and give you a proper explanation.
https://www.writetothem.com/
They will look into it, poke the council and give you a proper explanation.
https://www.writetothem.com/
funkyrobot said:
... allowed a property mogul to buy up a whole new development of flats? These would have been perfect for first time buyers.
They will also be perfect for renters (which is why the property mogul bought them. 
)Just because homes aren't being lived in by home owners doesn't mean they're not contributing to the nation's housing stock.
BoRED S2upid said:
When approving the planning application they can impose anything they want.
Your lack of understanding of Planning Law beggars belief.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff