Angela from Housing

So where do people live?

We have an aging population who are holding onto their homes, and a rise in single occupancy households due to divorce, sure this isn’t a popular as blaming immigration but it’s definitely driving the need for more homes!

• In 2023, 8.4 million people lived alone in the UK, which is 13% of the population and 29% of all households were retired.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew5rylqj2ko

I can help here:

Starmer - Never Here Keir
Pat McFaddon - The fighting prince of Donegal
Yvette Cooper - Mrs Ballsup
John Healy - The Rydale Renegade
Ed Miilliband - Red Ed or the Millipede

Surely that was the previous government's policy?

I totally agree that immigration is not the issue, but studies have shown that the impacts of urban cramming (brownfield first approach to development) incorrectly validates far right rhetoric of creaking and lack of local resources. This then further drives racism and division.

I personally quite like Angela and hope that she can persuade the government to properly fund and provide mass social housing building because that is what is absolutely needed.

One of the main drivers for the cost of living crisis is the affordability of housing… yet in the late 70s when there was an abundance of social housing my father was able to buy a house with a loan of just under twice his own salary only with a modest 20% deposit.

Now people are needing to borrow five times their salary to be able to buy a home…. leaving them very vulnerable to interest rate rises. In essence we have created a housing market that requires everyone to hand over huge amounts of money to banks each month to support the profiteering of private house builders.

With the alternative options of inflated rents from private landlords something has to change.

The private sector approach lead house building has failed since the 1980s and social housing sold off on the cheap has only made the situation ever worse…. and the competition to secure council homes is just insane as it forces people to bid against each other!

Let’s just allow that to sink in…. we make people bid against each other just to have a home….

Mass social house building does stimulate the economy too, kitchen and bathrooms need to be bought, flooring fitted, curtains and furniture bought, and these become more affordable for tenants because of lower rent prices. It could also be a springboard for apprenticeships and careers in the construction industry too!

If we want our economy to grow we need to fundamentally address the housing crisis properly and build homes for everyone!

The whole planning system needs abolishing and starting again . Stop all these stupid rules about designated areas only for this that and the other . Stop protecting ' countryside ' areas that are not even countryside . Stop thinking about large developments and let small builders and individuals do their thing . Let each planning application be judged on its own merit not on what ' rules ' apply to the location of the application. . No Angela won't hit anything like her targets , not enough planning consultants/ council planning departments understaffed , will take years to train new ones . The homes being built will not last as the quality is poor . Developers don't want to provide ' affordable housing ' in the SE because they can get more money if sold on the open market . People buying privately don't want to live side by side with social housing .
The whole housing sector is a car crash never mind leasehold scandals and the disgusting uninhabitable state of existing social housing . Anyone who's listened to Trapped podcast by ITN's Daniel Hewitt will get an idea of how bad things are .

@AsFunAsEnglishWeather

"If Nasty Nigel hadn't whipped up support for Brexit by promising people a load of nonsense and fairytales, the farmers would be a lot less screwed than they currently are. IHT is a drop in the ocean compared to the loss of EU subsidies"

And farmers are still supporting Farage unbelievably! I've seen photos of farmers happily posing with him yesterday at the protest in London. He is still whipping up support.

No farmer protests when the subsidy cut was announced - funny that!

Hey OP. Can you talk us through the nicknames you use for male politicians that minimise their position? Maybe just the top ten.

@envbeckyc Yes to the need for more social housing.

In the 1960s, 1.24 million social homes were built, compared to 150,000 in the 2010s - factoring in that there has been a net loss of social housing every year since 1981. For example, in 2022-2023 there was a net loss of 11,700 social rent homes (through right to buy, demolition, conversion).

While tax-evading millionaire populists are putting the blame solely on immigration, that is not the reality (of course!)

And the consequences for families are horrendous - rising private rents in awful, unhealthy conditions, housing insecurity, etc.

Now our Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, might not have been to Eton or read PPE at Oxford, and it’s clear from this thread she’s judged for being a young mum, her fashion choices, becoming a Unison rep when a care worker (and much more, I’m guessing), but having someone in charge of social housing who was raised in social housing and who understands the situation that so many families are facing can be seen as a positive. So often, stories and backgrounds similar to hers - of which there are many - aren’t represented in parliament.

Criticise her policies by all means, but some of the personal attacks on her are ridiculous, although I’m sure it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before and they haven’t stopped her yet.

No that’s never going to happen. Huge shortage of ground workers, bricklayers, electricians. They are in cloud cuckoo land. No apprenticeships for young people and so many overseas builders have left the UK.

The housing problem. It doesn't matter how many you build, as long as the population keeps increasing, you will just end up needing more. We can't keep building more houses indefinitely, there is only a finite amount of space and resources.

What can is being kicked down the road, please elaborate.

No new homes please. They will just fill up and the same problem will arise again. Building new homes is just kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with.

The reason why we are not building enough houses is because property developers secure planning permission and yet leave sites undeveloped for years, and then build at a very slow rate.

They do this because housing scarcity increases prices and secures developers a higher return on their investment.

Even if house building increases to 1.5 million homes many people who need housing will not be able to purchase them, as it’s social housing that is in very short supply.

Unless the government starts supporting mass social house building the homeless / insecure accommodation issues will remain. New build houses near me are at least £450k but I live in a council with 20,000 people on the council house waiting list! The homes near me literally are not going to solve the problem!
If you can secure a deposit and mortgage for £450k then you would simply buy one of the many houses on right move for sale.

We probably need to revisit the building of ‘New Towns’ and have new settlements rather than continuing to allow urban cramming to continue which creates congestion, drives shortages in school places and puts extra pressure on GPs.

The brownfield first approach is delivering 50 homes at any time on old factories etc… but developers don’t have to build a new school for those 50 houses. When this happens in many different locations in a school catchment you create catchment black holes and get presto you can’t get your kids into a local school anymore!

We need to think more radically and build houses with new infrastructure to support the population- but the government will need to fund this!

I hope she doesn't make her target. Every patch of green space around my town seems to be a target for housing right now. Its green belt but they don't care.

I find this most depressing, it's irreversible. Even the worst economic f..k up can be eventually corrected assuming a bit of competence of next government, but ancient woodland will be lost forever

Angela Rayner qualified? Tell me more please, I must have missed some recent news

Yep agreed - read all the misogynist nicknames, got to this Trump defender comment and decided to bow out too. No point engaging as too many PP clearly posting in bad faith.

@Teddybear23 definitely

This one is DEFINITELY

All the houses £500k plus 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

We have had three large estates built in Tetbury with the threat of a large new town being proposed between malmesbury and Tetbury. No infrastructure nothing

Same near me massive building started of flats but no extra schools or doctors …the roads won’t cope but no one seems to care it’s so distressing…it all seems so grim in all fronts right now 😞

I'm sorry to hear that 💐

Within weeks on Labour being in charge, our little town has had a decision upturned next to an ancient woodland to have 3000 homes built. No extra schools, doctors, dentists… not even any thoughts to roads