General Discussion
I thought this may interest people on here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/10/empty-homes-help-us-make-a-difference
There are 920,000 empty homes in the UK according to this article enough to home half the 1.8 million households on council waiting lists.
However, we also spend £20 billion a year on housing benefit, enough to build 300,000 houses every single year.
The housing problem could have been sorted out by the last government and the benefits bill reduced considerable. Instead Labour helped create the biggest UK housing ponzi scheme and housing bubble in history.
Oh dear Steve, you'll be in trouble - you've gone and mentioned the 'h' word. Tut tut.
My favourite is Peanut M&M's not Topic
Was it not a Conservative government who in 1980 passed the housing act and then allowed 2 million council houses to be sold between 1980 and 1998
and I shall be in double trouble cos............here is a link (shock horror probe) to an article from a housing magazine that is about er.......well, I'm sure you can imagine.
If you read it you will see that it concerns both the Right To Buy issue and the provision (or not) of Affordable Housing.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/development/familiar-feeling/6518245.article
leatash your so right
A near relative bought her very nice council house for under £8000 and sold it for a very handsome profit.
When she took over ownership her mortgage was almost the same amount as her council rent.
Alright for some. Rant Over
To quote from the article I refer to in my posting above.
The 1980 Housing Act introduced the Right to Buy legislation. As a result "more than 2.5 million council homes worth almost £86 billion were sold by 2009 for £45 billion."
When i was a lad many moons ago and marriage was on the books one would apply for a council house normally with success and then as the years went on you would save and buy your first house leaving your council house for the next young couple. The system worked really well and then came Maggie and put a spanner in the works it never did make any sense to me as that was how thousands of young people got a foot on the property ladder most of my family did it. Could it be we need to turn the clock back and use some of the ideas they had in the 50s and early 60s it might be worth a shot