SOCIAL HOUSING
ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE HOUSES CALLED COUNCIL HOUSES BUT THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES SOLD THEM OFF. IT WAS A CHEAPER OPTION THAT HAVING TO KEEP THEM ON THEIR BOOKS AND ALL THE ATTENDANT HASSLE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF FINDING SOCIALLY NEEDY PEOPLE TO FILL THEM.
But, of course, the socially needy never went away; it fact they multiplied and multiplied. The land was there but the developers grabbed that and filled it with houses built at minimum cost and sold at maximum price. They were also supposed to build some affordable housing too but other people grabbed that – eg those £60,000 affordable ones at Milton Keynes which were privately sold on for over £400,000. If you build social housing enclaves the fear is you have created ghettos. If you try and mix social housing with non-social housing you get social objections.
The empty promise
As housing waiting lists grow and social house building grinds to a halt, hundreds of thousands of homes like lie empty. The weekly magazine Inside Housing is to be applauded for its Empty Promise campaign to help fill the voids. www.emptyhomes.com provides all the details about the now formal charity known as the Empty Homes Agency.
The scandal of the UK’s empty homes – there are 943,414 of them according to the Empty Homes Agency – is sadly not new. For example, there are more than 30,000 families waiting for housing in Leeds but, at the same time the council says 17,741 homes in the city lie empty. It’s a recurring pattern and insulting pattern nationwide, scarring neighbourhoods, inviting anti-social behaviour and sapping community spirit.
Council houses return
Regenerating and breathing life into empty properties is one small step to help social housing. Yet a much larger one is likely to be the return of thousands of council houses. These could be built across England in the next few years following an announcement by Gordon Brown that he plans to relax rules that have prevented local authorities from building social housing.
Claiming that the Government wanted to free up councils to help people in these difficult times, while at the same time helping the construction industry, the Prime Minister said at a recent New Local Government Network conference, "In the past we have placed restrictions on local authorities delivering social housing. But, today, let me be clear: if local authorities can convince us that they can deliver quickly, and cost effectively, more of the housing that Britain needs . . . then we will be prepared to give them our full backing and put aside anything that stands in their way."
The problems
Buyer beware - some of the worst council housing developments were built during major economic downturns and local authorities must not compromise on quality because of the financial crisis. Clearly, the problems are immense when, simultaneously, the Government is committed to tackling the carbon footprint of existing housing, planning eco-towns, combating climate change and getting the building industry to create new homes on a large scale which demonstrate carbon developments and sustainable living.
The fear is that some bright spark might just think that it is a jolly wheeze to kill all these big birds with one big stone and persuade the powers that eco-towns should quite simply be 100% social housing. The consequences of going down that route are unbearable!