so Camoron wants to re-promote/re-brand/re-whatever the 'right to buy' disaster

[Guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/02/david-cameron-right-to-buy?newsfeed=true

you'd think someone would have had a word in his ear about what a catastrophe it was first time round

[eFestivals]

http://www.guardian....y?newsfeed=true

you'd think someone would have had a word in his ear about what a catastrophe it was first time round

I'm thinking that is likely to be a con.

The right wing view has been that 'social housing' shouldn't be controlled by accountable councils but by unaccountable 'housing associations'.

Most of the housing that's been transferred to housing associations has been transferred without tenants having had a vote over the transfer. Lots of councils have decided to ask their tenants if they'd like to have their housing moved to a housing association, and mostly those tenants have voted against it. This has brought mostly an end to this transfer of housing.

And now Dave Moron is saying that "council houses" will be encouraged more to be sold, while only "social housing" will be built to replace it. So I'm guessing that this is designed to transfer the houses to those housing associations via an underhand means.

Here's betting that's how things pan out.

[Johnthebar]

It can't work like the previous right to buy. There's no decent stock left that lots of people would want to buy, they sold all of that and then banned local authorities from replacing it.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

surely not...

who know's what he's thinking...

most of the housing that was worth buying has probably been bought anyway. The properties that are left, the sprawling run down estates, no-one would want anyway.. would they?

of course it could fuel another hopeless spending spree...?

Edited October 3, 2011 by Rufus Gwertigan

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I'm thinking that is likely to be a con.

The right wing view has been that 'social housing' shouldn't be controlled by accountable councils but by unaccountable 'housing associations'.

Most of the housing that's been transferred to housing associations has been transferred without tenants having had a vote over the transfer. Lots of councils have decided to ask their tenants if they'd like to have their housing moved to a housing association, and mostly those tenants have voted against it. This has brought mostly an end to this transfer of housing.

And now Dave Moron is saying that "council houses" will be encouraged more to be sold, while only "social housing" will be built to replace it. So I'm guessing that this is designed to transfer the houses to those housing associations via an underhand means.

Here's betting that's how things pan out.

[eFestivals]

I'd like to know why you think housing associations aren't accountable. I work for one and it seems to me that we are very much accountable. We have internal and external auditors in all the time. Everything you do down to the crossing of your t's and dotting of your i's is looked at and there's hell to pay if it isn't done correctly, which is rare. The amount of policies and procedures you have to meet is truly mind blowing. Although fully conforming, it's an oppressive regime to work in but at the end of the day fully professional - and accountable. Guess there maybe others which are not such a well oiled machine but even these are subject to external scrutiny and benchmarking against standards and other housing associations.

You're talking about a different accountability to what I was meaning. I was meaning accountable to the public - after all, it's using public money for social housing for use by the public.

There's been loads of stuff in the last 18 months or so about how some council leaders are paid more than the PM, and how that's wrong. And yet the people at the top of housing associations - which are much smaller organisations than councils, don't forget - are sometimes (often?) paid much more than either of those, all off the radar of the public in general, and yet only achievable for those people via the use of public money.

Social housing is a public asset, but one that the public has no influence over. There is no public vote over anything of what they might choose to do.

Edited October 4, 2011 by eFestivals

[5co77ie]

It can't work like the previous right to buy. There's no decent stock left that lots of people would want to buy, they sold all of that and then banned local authorities from replacing it.

[5co77ie]

they're saying they'll replace every property sold with a new one

for some reason, I don't believe them

[Purple Monkey]

Anyone that believes anything the government says needs mental help.

[HurrahBrother]

It can't work like the previous right to buy. There's no decent stock left that lots of people would want to buy, they sold all of that and then banned local authorities from replacing it.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

And there in lies what I think was the core problem.

If the money raised had been ploughed back into new social housing, creating communities that would be mixed social tenants and home owners, it would have been a good thing. Now what social housing that is being built is almost entirely segregated (promoting them and us attitudes) 'out of the way' mostly of 'will this do?' quality (like the social housing I live in. Tacked on the side of a main development with no parking, no balconies, no security, no way to the other communal areas or facilities, and a separate entrance!).