Right or wrong? Social housing on new builds

[Sycamore]

fk me reading through this thread is depressing.

My girlfriend and I are 21/23 and have a decent amount saved, but we're planning on renting for a few years still so we can save even more and put a large deposit down.

The plan has always been to buy a less-nice house in a nice area, instead of vice versa as we can always improve the house whereas we can't move it, although seems there are plenty stories on this thread of nice areas turning to st after a few years with SH moving in, or new estates being built nearby.

At this rate I'm buying a cottage in the middle of a field that I can plant land mines in.

[V8RX7]

Sycamore said:

At this rate I'm buying a cottage in the middle of a field that I can plant land mines in.

There's a reason why homes with no neighbours fetch high prices

My nearest neighbour is around 200m away, the next is 400m on the other two sides, around a mile

[cptsideways]

I think we really need to toughen up the policies on anti social behaviour, currently its all pointless twaddle. Build ghetto spec estates, no lawns, plain & simple

If you get a free house, it must be kept clean & tidy, mown lawn, no rubbish. Any whiff of ASB & your out & off to the ghetto estate.

[Johnnytheboy]

The thing that grinds my gears - and I've seen this happen several times round here (rural SW) is that the social housing - or as it's euphemistically called, "affordable" housing - is sold to the incumbent residents as being for local young people who otherwise won't be able to afford a house.

Then when they are built the council fill them with vermin from a large town or city some distance away, while the aforementioned local young people languish on the housing list.

[Jasandjules]

It is unfortunate that this type of social engineering does not and will not work. An admirable idea flawed only due to the nature of some of the recipients.

[Nickbrapp]

austinsmirk said:

Well my expert social housing view is:

One thing we don’t do is reward the decent working man, family on a low income who needs a break in life. They have to jump though hoops and be stuck with all the professionally unemployed long term benefits claimants. And that’s not fair. Plus literally there are virtually no consequences for a person who literally wants to play the system over and over

Edited by austinsmirk on Friday 20th April 08:18

One good story you can take back is. I live on a Estate in South Wales. There’s 2 HA flats. A nice couple moved out of it, and it was empty for about 4 months. Then a single man has moved in.

I got talking to him, he said he had a bad divorce from his wife and had been living at home for a couple of years, and been on the waiting list for a flat or house in Cardiff since. He then saw this empty flat come up, bid on it, and got it. Which is nice for him. He’s about 45, goes to work etc. So it’s really nice to see someone get a fresh start and not just playing the system by opening their legs and popping out another sprog no one needs.

[romeogolf]

romeogolf said:

There are two primary reasons for building social housing within private developments:

- It's built privately, so no cost to local authorities
- It avoids the ghetto effect with the intention of stopping certain areas of towns being 'no-go' areas

Of course, if you're on a low income (and social housing is provided to those in work as well as out of work) then you're less likely to have the money to "make pretty" your home like your neighbours. Your fence may be left unpainted, the grass will be cut less frequently, and your car will likely look 'lesser'. Secondly, it's not your home. As with any rented accommodation, where is the incentive to make improvements if you don't benefit from the increased value?

A colleague of mine earns mid-£20k salary and lives in a house association provided 2-bed home with her young son. She works full time and is raising her son as best she can. She struggles. The cost of childcare is huge and she doesn't have the luxury of spare cash or time to plant flowers, paint the fence, or anything else which separates her home from that of her neighbour. But she's happy to be on a nicer development than the old tower blocks that she thought she'd be in. It's safer and a much nicer place to raise her son. The argument that only "hard working" people should deserve nice homes is misguided at best. We're all just a health-scare away from being in a very similar situation, losing an income, and struggling to make ends meet.

There are problem neighbours everywhere. You only need to look through the forums here to see how many people live next to owner-occupiers who leave rubbish outside, or park their caravan in the way, or do anything else which we consider unpleasant. It's not restricted to social housing.

As an aside, I'm sick to death of the "immigrant" line. My family are immigrants who came here to escape persecution elsewhere and build a better life. Our standard conversation on these issues is about how lazy British people are. It's always the English folks who leave work at a minute before 5 and refuse to even turn their computer on until exactly 9am, watching the clock to make sure they get their exact hour lunch-break. It's a separate debate but it's infurating.

Quoting myself as the thread was revived recently. Since this post last year we've bought a house on a 14-year-old development, which is 40% social/affordable and 60% private.

Yes, you can tell which side is which (not least because the social side is all a smaller house design with shared parking, while the private side gets driveways and front lawns).

Social side looks tired - Why? Because the parking is shared, no one weeds it or cleans it. On the private side we all take care of the space outside our homes because it's OURS, we jet-wash the drives, cut the lawn, remove the weeds. Our cars are newer, our houses bigger - But our kids scream just as loudly in the summer, our evening BBQs with wine and music are just as a disturbance to our sleeping neighbours, and our cats will st wherever they damn well please. Perhaps all your estates are very different to ours, but this thread stinks of snobbery.

[dmsims]

romeogolf said:

but this thread stinks of reality.

EFA

[V8RX7]

romeogolf said:

But our kids scream just as loudly in the summer, our evening BBQs with wine and music are just as a disturbance to our sleeping neighbours, and our cats will st wherever they damn well please.

I wouldn't want to live next door to you either

[Johnnytheboy]

V8RX7 said:

romeogolf said:

But our kids scream just as loudly in the summer, our evening BBQs with wine and music are just as a disturbance to our sleeping neighbours, and our cats will st wherever they damn well please.

I wouldn't want to live next door to you either

I was thinking that...

[irocfan]

Sheepshanks said:

One thing I find strange is the kids go in and out of the houses via the windows!

Practice for later life?

[hyphen]

romeogolf said:

A colleague of mine earns mid-£20k salary and lives in a house association provided 2-bed home with her young son. She works full time and is raising her son as best she can. She struggles. The cost of childcare is huge and she doesn't have the luxury of spare cash or time to plant flowers, paint the fence, or anything else which separates her home from that of her neighbour. But she's happy to be on a nicer development than the old tower blocks that she thought she'd be in. It's safer and a much nicer place to raise her son.

What does she do in evenings(or when not working, if shifts) and don't say kids, you can do stuff around house around 1 child easily, plus he can help.

So she earns mid £20k + reduced rent + top up benefits, I'm sure people have it a lot worse- mid £20k afterall is more than many low income people will ever earn. And if she is your colleague I am guessing she is cheaper Dorset rather than say London where cost of living is higher.

She doesn't have £20 for a pot of paint then.... Are you sure about that.

I would suspect she is perfectly capable of planting some flowers or painting a fence. Won't take long.

I have family who are single mums who work on low income and raise kids, they get on with it and do find the money to paint a fence or plant flowers. So sorry, I I read your piece but didn't buy it.

Do you vote lib Dems, or greens...

Edited by hyphen on Monday 23 April 22:41

[Black_S3]

CraigyMc said:

I grew up in a council house. My parents still live in it, having bought it from the council years ago.

People have to live somewhere, so you really are asking the question:
(A) Do you want "council" to be on private estates, or
(B) Do you want "council" to live in a ghetto.

A is a crap choice, but since it's better than B, I choose A.

Agree with this. If you want to see the overall result of a state that doesn't help the less able have a look at the slums of Brazil/India/South Africa etc and ask yourself if you would prefer to live in a wealthy community in one of those countries that needs 24/7 armed guards. The problem is that as we've evolved from dumping the problem onto sink estates to mixing the problem families among working people is the police/councils/courts have not been given new powers or resources to deal with the new problems created. The housing problem for working people is actually a separate issue.

[troika]

Johnnytheboy said:

The thing that grinds my gears - and I've seen this happen several times round here (rural SW) is that the social housing - or as it's euphemistically called, "affordable" housing - is sold to the incumbent residents as being for local young people who otherwise won't be able to afford a house.

Then when they are built the council fill them with vermin from a large town or city some distance away, while the aforementioned local young people languish on the housing list.

Yes, I’ve heard of this happening in Cornwall, about the poorest county in the U.K. Problem families being moved from the Midlands to an area with no employment and chronic housing issues. The locals have no chance.

[troika]

V8RX7 said:

Sycamore said:

At this rate I'm buying a cottage in the middle of a field that I can plant land mines in.

There's a reason why homes with no neighbours fetch high prices

My nearest neighbour is around 200m away, the next is 400m on the other two sides, around a mile

I can highly recommend this strategy, although doubt you’ll need the landmines. Do what you like, whenever you like, without causing any bother to anyone and vice versa. Bliss.

[Sycamore]

troika said:

V8RX7 said:

Sycamore said:

At this rate I'm buying a cottage in the middle of a field that I can plant land mines in.

There's a reason why homes with no neighbours fetch high prices

My nearest neighbour is around 200m away, the next is 400m on the other two sides, around a mile

I can highly recommend this strategy, although doubt you’ll need the landmines. Do what you like, whenever you like, without causing any bother to anyone and vice versa. Bliss.

Unfortunately for my first property, somewhere like this is out of reach. I'm in the West Mids, so property can be cheap overall, although any detached property is double the price of a semi, and anything in the middle of a field is many multiples of that.

Some cheap camper vans on PH at the moment..

[Dog Star]

troika said:

Yes, I’ve heard of this happening in Cornwall, about the poorest county in the U.K. Problem families being moved from the Midlands to an area with no employment and chronic housing issues. The locals have no chance.

You need the Rochdale experience - get all the countries asylum seekers dumped on you by the fking south, who will then sneer at you because you live in a place full of unemployed immigrants.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2857839/To...

[romeogolf]

Johnnytheboy said:

V8RX7 said:

romeogolf said:

But our kids scream just as loudly in the summer, our evening BBQs with wine and music are just as a disturbance to our sleeping neighbours, and our cats will st wherever they damn well please.

I wouldn't want to live next door to you either

I was thinking that...

It was a general 'our' in reference to the private-ownership houses. I'm childless and catless, so it was a reference to any of our neighbours regardless of who paid for their home.

[vsonix]

troika said:

CPWilliams said:

If you don't mix it, you risk creating ghettos.

I spent 5 years in Toulouse (Airbus), and the banlieues had socioeconomic problems unlike anything you'd see in the UK; problems which were quite deliberately ignored by the authorities

I empathises with the points raised though

I can only imagine. If we accept that there will always be issues, what is wrong with keeping the issues contained to one place rather than allowing them to infiltrate everywhere?

Because not everyone is pessimistic enough to think that the kids of 'socially undesirable' parents deserve to be condemned to the same cycle of fkery their parents ended up in through either circumstance or choice.
If kids of lower income families grow up alongside kids from 'decent' families there is more chance those less advantaged will have friends from more mobile social circles.
This whole thread is full of massive NIBYism and socio-economic snobbery. Kinda horrible really.

[V8RX7]

vsonix said:

Because not everyone is pessimistic enough to think that the kids of 'socially undesirable' parents deserve to be condemned to the same cycle of fkery their parents ended up in through either circumstance or choice.

If kids of lower income families grow up alongside kids from 'decent' families there is more chance those less advantaged will have friends from more mobile social circles.

This whole thread is full of massive NIBYism and socio-economic snobbery. Kinda horrible really.

Equally nice children will then be influenced by not so nice children with their swearing, violence, theft etc

They have tried closing "special schools" and educating children with Special needs alongside mainstream kids - it doesn't work

They are currently experimenting busing kids from crappy areas into schools in good areas - it doesn't work, it might raise 1% up a smidge but it drags 90% down - that isn't progress.

If you look at Countries where "everyone is equal" - they are all equal at a far lower level than countries where hard work, talent etc are rewarded.

If you want fewer disadvantaged children then don't let people breed until they can demonstrate they have the education, skills and finances to support their children or at least limit them to one child.