Council housing in the seventies

[rattymol]

In the seventies one third of people in Britain lived in a council house. Council houses were built because of the terrible way private landlords behaved and the poor standard of housing many people lived in. We are returning to those days
4.5 million households privately rent with 23% of that housing deemed not to meet the decent homes standard. We need council housing again.

There are people with a joint income of £120k in Northampton? Don’t believe it, let alone living in a council house.

One of the main points of social housing was that it built communities of hard working but lower paid families. In other words- key workers - who are needed in all areas, including the most expensive. If we take away the fact they are long term tenancies then communities won't develop and they will just become slum stock as the tenants won't make them their own and maintain them inside.

Absolutely this. There's also no extended families to help out with child care, with elderly relatives etc.
Our village is very expensive to buy- it's like a social cleansing- getting rid the of all the working class.

I always remember anyone can claim anything on here.

And what do you think.will.happen then?
.if people think.they will lose.their.home after two.years if their circumstances improve,that's not going to.be an incentive to.improve their circumstances is it ?
I.live.in a hiding association house ( it was council.but all.the homes were sold to.a h housing association) we need settled communities ,where families can settle and children can have a stable home

It’s always good to be reminded of that 😉

Why would I make that up? One is an orthodontist and one is a part time nurse practitioner. They make decent money, yes, in Northampton.

It is possible, but a council house for that rent will not be a desirable property. So why not live somewhere nicer if you can afford it.

Absolutely agree, and council housing should never have been sold off in the first place. But those council tenants (who had massive security, basically a home for life) were very quick to buy that house at a vastly discounted price and in many cases sell it to make a quick profit

It was horrible when they first got it but they've re-done the whole thing. It's actually quite big, one bedroom, but they're re-fitted everything. That's the other issue with kicking people out of social housing. They're allowed to pretty much do what they want to it. Imagine them then being kicked out once their wage hits a certain point and losing all of that time and money.

So why would they live in social.housing ?
They can't have much financial sense can they ,to.earn that much but rent🤔

Probably because they've spent a lot of money doing it up and it's basically in the middle of both their workplaces.

But was much of that not a legacy of the Blitz? Displaced families from London and large cities who were resettled elsewhere. And some of it was prefab accommodation well beyond its use by date. Thatcher's Right to Buy put paid to extensive social housing supply and raised expectations of home ownership for all. Few other European countries share that culture.

Then why not buy it if they have spent so much money doing up a horrible one bedroom flat?
Your example makes zero sense. And a horrible one bedroom flat is unlikely to be in a nice area and will likely have at least one problem neighbour.
This is why people are questioning it. It makes zero sense for someone very well off to live like this.

Some council housing was built after the blitz in some cities. But many cities and towns had no or little housing destroyed during the war.
Most housing was built in the sixties and seventies because people were living in expensive rented accommodation that did not meet basic living standards. The same issues as now. Damp, overcrowded families, landlords refusing to do repairs.

Possibly because they wanted to have children (didn't happen for them sadly) and wanted to get a bigger place? I have no idea I'm just giving possible scenarios but bar asking them I can't answer your questions. Will agree to leave it there.

Where would you like them to "get on their feet" to? Are all the slum private landlords suddenly going to clean up their act? Are we going to reintroduce rent control to stop excessive and unaffordable rents in the private sector? Are they going to win the lotrey and buy a house? When they haven't "got in their feet" are you going to sling them out on the street?

That comment suggests that you have no understanding of the reality of the lives of others.

I totally agree that we need to invest heavily in new social housing. I would go further, and ensure (as experts have been arguing from the 80's & 90's) that estates are smaller and more mixed socially - encouraging a wider tenant base because all the evidence is that unless you do you continue to develop sink estates. Make social housing more popular and attractive to people from a range of economic backgrounds. I would also entirely stop any sale of social housing. If people want home ownership then fine - there is a large enough and ever renewing stock of housing to buy. But we need to get rid of the idea that somehow people are "better" if they own their own home. That distinction didn't exist in the sixties and early 70's, and for many families getting a council house was "landing on your feet" and something to take pride in.

Then no sense of community would ever build up. I don't agree with this.

Have to agree, it was a bad idea

Also the councils need to deal with sub letting which isn't fair either

We have slum landlords again. That is why council housing was originally built.
23% of housing rented out does not meet decent home's standards.
Lots of people live in overcrowded damp housing.

I saw that. One person living in the ex bathroom of what was a 3 bed council house. One in the kitchen etc. Council housing was built to get rid of slum housing but now we've returned to slum housing.

Moving people on after a fixed term/income threshold gives people no incentive to improve their circumstances. Imagine being offered promotion at work and having to turn it down because you'd end up homeless and moving into private rental would leave you financially worse off than you were before the promotion?

Social housing should encourage people to put down roots, build stable communities and have a respectable standard of living. We need more social housing not punitive measures on those living in it.

The initial idea with Right to Buy was that further housing would be built to replace the ones sold. Obviously didn't happen, hence the current mess.
Even housing associations have changed: initially they were for a range of tenants eg single people not looking to buy, but now they seem to be exclusively social housing.
I absolutely agree that we need more decent affordable (and by which I mean affordable to average/low paid workers, not some planning committee's opinion on affordable) housing stock.
As others have said, renting is much more common on the Continent (eg Germany) with no stigma attached, people can even pass the rental on to their children in some places I believe. This is the approach I would like to see in the UK.
I was brought up in council housing in the 70's, my dad made the garden beautiful, full of rosebushes, and painted and decorated regularly. So aside from major issues like the roof (which actually was never a problem) we the tenants looked after the house, because it was our home, and we felt secure in the tenancy so had incentive to look after the place.
Plus, we had a rent-free week at Christmas which also added to the general sense of community, like the council were not heartless bureaucrats.

Where I live there are restrictions on re-selling. If I was to buy my council house I have to live in it for a minimum term afterwards before I can sell, if I sell within the first five years then I'd have to pay back some of the discount and if I sell it within the first ten years of purchase I have to offer it for sale to the council so they have first refusal before I can put it on the open market.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least people living in slum conditions in london.

Selling off council housing was one of the most socially destructive things to do.

How did they get the money to build them in the first place? Given 50s-70s not particularly affluent?

Society is so wealthy in so many ways and yet we can’t afford to house people.

And because I live in an AONB, the council have restrictions on who I could sell it to, there is a rule that says I can only sell it to someone who has lived or worked in the region for 3+ years.