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Rearrange these words: than, never, better, late.
One of Margaret Thatcher's flagship policies is to be abolished in Wales by the end of the year: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wa...icies-12730129
One of the totemic policies of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain will be swept away in Wales by the end of 2017 following the publication today of a Bill to abolish tenants’ right to buy their council homes.
More than 139,000 housing units in Wales have been bought by tenants since 1980, when the then-Prime Minister launched her crusade to increase the number of home owners.
But opponents of the policy say it has reduced the availability of social housing and lengthened waiting lists for those who cannot afford to buy homes.
Already in four local authority areas in Wales – Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Anglesey and Flintshire – the right to buy not just council homes, but also houses and flats owned by housing associations, has been suspended under an earlier piece of Assembly legislation.
In November 2016 Cardiff council requested a similar suspension because of what council leader Phil Bale described as “critical housing need”.
The new Bill, however, will scrap the right to buy and associated other rights across the whole of Wales.
Following legal advice taken by the Welsh Government, existing tenants will have up to a year to make fresh applications to buy their homes after the Bill receives Royal Assent.
The gap is to minimise the possibility of a court challenge under human rights legislation.
The Welsh Government sees its proposal as a fair balance between the rights of existing tenants to exercise their current rights and the rights of future tenants who need social housing.
Currently, tenants who make an application to buy their homes receive a discount of £8,000 if they don’t sell it on for five years. Until July 2015 the discount was £16,000.
In introducing the Bill, the Welsh Government aims to protect the Welsh stock of social housing from further reduction, ensuring it is available to provide safe, secure and affordable housing for people who are unable to take advantage of the housing market to buy or rent a home.
To encourage the development of new social housing, the Bill, if passed by the Assembly, will provide that the Right to Buy and Right to Acquire will end for new homes two months after Royal Assent.
This, says the Welsh Government, will help encourage social landlords to build new homes in the knowledge that they will not be at risk of being sold after only a relatively short period.
According to the Welsh Government, the Bill complements other actions being taken by it to increase the supply of housing.
Ahead of the Bill’s introduction, Communities Secretary Carl Sargeant said: “Our social housing is a valuable resource, but it is under considerable pressure. The size of the stock has declined significantly since 1980 when the Right to Buy was introduced.
“The number of sales is equivalent to 45% of the social housing stock in 1981. This has resulted in people in housing need, many of whom are vulnerable, waiting longer to access a home they can afford.
“The Bill supports the Welsh Government’s wider aims of a more prosperous and fairer Wales, helping to tackle poverty by protecting our stock of social housing from further reduction.
“I recognise the proposal affects existing tenants and we will ensure tenants are made aware of the effect of the Bill in good time before abolition takes place.
“The Bill will require the Welsh Government to publish information, which social landlords in turn must provide to every affected tenant, within two months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent.
“We have set an ambitious target of creating 20,000 affordable homes in this term of government. Alongside social housing this will include schemes such as Help to Buy and Rent to Own to enable people on modest incomes to own their own homes.
“We are supporting low-cost home ownership and we are expanding the social housing stock. Abolishing the Right to Buy will complement these other actions we are taking in order to support people in housing need.”
Councillor Dyfed Edwards, the Welsh Local Government Association’s housing spokesman said: “At a time of acute shortages of social rented homes, and with many thousands of people currently on housing waiting lists, the proposal from the Welsh Government to abolish right to buy is a welcome step in tackling a growing problem in Wales.
“It is essential that people’s access is improved to good quality social rented housing in order to enhance people’s lives, and also to revitalise local communities.”
The Bill will, however, be opposed by the Welsh Conservatives, whose Shadow Housing Minister Mark Isherwood said last October when the Welsh Government signalled its intention to legislate in the area: “This crisis has been caused by Labour’s failure to build new affordable homes, not the right to buy, which has been emasculated under Labour and seen sales dwindle from the thousands to just a few hundred each year.
“Instead, Welsh Conservatives proposed to reform the right to buy, investing the proceeds of council sales in new social housing, thereby increasing housing supply and helping to tackle Labour’s housing supply crisis.”
RTB probably came into being via a friendly request/donation from the Bankers, so that they could profit from a new source of morguages, which was soon followed by the student loans. And now that we are running out of ways to load debt onto people, it's time to raise the NIC's
The banksters love debt creating mousetraps don't they?
Bet their delighted their industrial education complex poster boy Blair is trying to get back on the political scene
Arguably, moving into a smaller home to meet the size of the home you need is no bad thing. You would hope those in social housing live there with full knowledge that there are many perks for this limited downside.Originally Posted by ninianclark
I would not accept that being in social housing means you take less pride in maintaining your accommodation. People will either be the type to take pride in their accommodation or not, but perhaps your con is more about who is responsible for maintaining the property and cost which comes with this.
I believe it's the comedian Henning Wehn that talks about the differences between Brits and Germans with one example being attitude to owning your own home, but perhaps they have fewer low quality landlords.
Funnily enough, I've spent the past hour looking at debt. The International Monetary Fund's latest estimate of the world's total debt is 152 trillion US dollars, which equates to almost 18 thousand quid each for every person alive today. Their calculation is on the low side, gulp.The Institute for International Finance puts it at 217 trillion and 325% of global GDP. It's fair to say that the debt bubble is the biggest in humankind. When it'll pop to bring everything crashing down no-one knows except for those who engineered it, and they ain't telling. I'll go for 2018.RTB probably came into being via a friendly request/donation from the Bankers, so that they could profit from a new source of morguages, which was soon followed by the student loans. And now that we are running out of ways to load debt onto people, it's time to raise the NIC's
Are we entering another (BBM)The banksters love debt creating mousetraps don't they?
Bet their delighted their industrial education complex poster boy Blair is trying to get back on the political scene
Good news.
The only downside is that Feedback will pop up (whatever his user-name is now) to re-run all the monster RTB threads of the past 10 years, and life is just too short.
Soz LoM. Maybe I'm being thick but I don't know what BBM is?
Why is it always the ones that own property want to deny the ability of others to do the same thing ?
Who is denying anyone the right to own property?
No it isn't.
The council also own the local park, I spent loads of time there as a kid, why can't I buy it? Because it is a resource that was intended for everybody and not just one person/family.
Thankfully I can just buy some other land and put some swings and slides on there and play to my hearts content, just like council house tenants can also choose to buy a house if they would like to.
I was thinking, the champagne socialists on here, bragging about their 50k train driving jobs, nice house, 2 cars, plush holidays, top hotels etc. etc. but championing their pretend socialist values when Mr. Not so well off has the chance to buy a property.
What does that have to do with selling them it?
If central government gave sitting Council tenants a huge discount (out of general taxation) to buy a home on the open market then fair enough. They already use huge amounts of public money to subsidise private landlords and low wage employers, so why not Council tenants too.
However, to promote Right To Buy for Council tenants (and the same applies with even more negatives to Housung Association tenants) under the current rules is a disaster. It effectively means that all remaining tenants pay for the discount (under the Housing Revenue Account self-financing system that was introduced in 2011-12 - although that would also have been the effect under the previous HRA subsidy system). It leaves the Council with the historic debt but insufficient revenue to service it. It fails to ensure that replacement Council housing can be built - despite repeated weaselly claims by the Coalition and Tory governments since 2010. It introduces new dis-economies of scale into Council housing management and maintenance. The stock reduces further and becomes more ghettoised as the 'better' homes are sold at vast discounts and the remaining stock becomes the tenure of last resort for those people and families with no other choices - and often after extended time in crappy B&Bs waiting for a reducing number of vacants. The Tory proposals for extending RTB into Housing Associations are based on Council tenants paying the Housing Association tenants' discounts. If there was a real prospect of Councils replacing sold homes on a one-for-one basis and maintaining a decent mix of type, size and location there would not be much opposition to RTB (other than the discount inequity that has worked as an electoral bribe for decades). But that isn't what happens - and nor can it. The government has an ideological desire to privatise Council housing (the Blair-Brown governments didn't do much to slow or reverse that direction of travel) and RTB expansion is the main tool now - after large and small scale stock transfers and other similar policies from 1990 onwards.
For the record I don't drink champaign, was a Council tenant for many years, and worked in my local Council's housing service for 28 years up until 3 years ago. So I am passing comment based on personal knowledge and experience. Good on the WAG.
Last edited by jon1959; 15-03-17 at 22:45.
Looking forward to your nice big fat Pension
Because it's probably been sold already.
Councils selling off parks and green spaces
https://www.localgov.co.uk/Councils-...n-spaces/41585
I thought Jon was younger than that.Looking forward to your nice big fat Pension
I did as wellBecause it's probably been sold already.
Councils selling off parks and green spaces
https://www.localgov.co.uk/Councils-...n-spaces/41585
I thought Jon was younger than that.
Yeah Jon, take that!
I feel sorry for anyone who has worked in the council for 28 years - let alone in the same dept, in my book that either makes you extremely lazy or dead wood or showing no motivation whatsoever
That will teach you for calmly and respectfully answering their points with facts and opinions based on a wealth of experience.
Oh get you Mr Fancy Dan.
I feel sorry for anyone who has worked in the council for 28 years - let alone in the same dept, in my book that either makes you extremely lazy or dead wood or showing no motivation whatsoever
I think I'll give your book a miss.
I feel sorry for anyone who has worked in the council for 28 years - let alone in the same dept, in my book that either makes you extremely lazy or dead wood or showing no motivation whatsoever
Comments like that make it obvious why you keep having to change your name.
I feel sorry for anyone who has worked in the council for 28 years - let alone in the same dept, in my book that either makes you extremely lazy or dead wood or showing no motivation whatsoever
I have worked for a few Local councils as a carpenter, the VOG, Bridgend, Cardiff and then 2 down in Wiltshire
some of the stories would make you cry, brand spanking new Kitchens in ruins and needing to be ripped out inside 6 months, of course the Tenant will say " it was accidental damage " and the Building inspector will disagree and the Council / HA will charge the tenant for the work, which they cannot pay, so will arrange to pay 70p a week to cover it
we had a council estate rebuilt ( as part of the deal to not have affordable housing on this new build estate ) , so they ripped down all the concrete houses built new, the same builder who built my brother in laws house ( which he paid 200 K for about 20 years ago ) the houses were exactly the same spec, same Kitchens, same doors, same flooring, but guess what, the HA tenants paid nothing for it, inside 12 months, i must have been to every house on that estate to repair wrecked stuff
^^
"some of the stories"
No need to tar anybody / everybody that needs social housing with the same dirty brush.
Many people are dependent on Social Housing. That is why it exists. There is not a glut of well paid full time jobs that will meet rent criteria, let alone Mortgage criteria.
Here's another story - I was talking to someone the other day who was spouting off about social housing and 'scroungers' yadda, yadda .. he seemed to be forgetful of the fact that his adult daughter lives in Social housing (which I am sure she looks after well) and who would be struggling otherwise - or living with him in his autumn years.
There is a need for social housing - that's is unlikely to change anytime soon, and I have no doubt in my mind that the vast majority of tenants would take care of decent accommodation.
are you doubting the stories then ? ? ? ?^^
"some of the stories"
No need to tar anybody / everybody that needs social housing with the same dirty brush.
or are just disappointed that they have happened ? ?? ?
the sad fact is, that a brand new kitchen has been fitted for a tenant and inside 6 months it has been trashed so badly that it has had to have been replaced, with the tenant paying nothing for either kitchen ( or if they have had to, 70p per week for the second kitchen ) do you think that would have happened if they had have to save £10,000 for the first new kitchen ? ? ?? let alone the second new £10.000 kitchen
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