Angela Rayner and building more houses.

[upinaballoon]

I believe she's going to make a statement today or soon, about plans for house-building.

What would you like her to take into consideration as she makes these plans and implements them?

Would you send her an e-mail to say what you think about it all?

[email protected]
[email protected]

Dear Angela

Please audit all social housing to ensure it is matched with the right needs for an area
Dont listen to the Nimbys , everyone can agree on the need for more housing but just not here !!
Stop selling off council housing and right to buy for a few years

And adjust housing policy Why should the childless/child free be expected to live like this and be treated like battery hens just because we havent reproduced.

Do you mean flats versus houses or one bedroom only for singletons?

TBH social housing sizes generally are so stingy and families are also expected to cram themselves into the smallest possible number of bedrooms.

The excuse is always that it would be pointless to try and stop it, because they’d find a way around it. Funny how that argument works when it’s millionaires involved, but they’re happy to squander billions on trying to stop poor people coming here.

@LiterallyOnFire Bet there is a garden though with some shade Here there is just a car park

Inspired by someone else's comment ...
Reduce the capital gains on selling a property when it's sold to the local authority for local housing.

Strong communities need stable population that isn't transient and a good mix of people.
If you want a better country it starts locally.

Friend of mine is having new windows fitted by the HA He likes his bedroom window open all the time. Its going to be interesting if they insist on window restrictors particularly as its a ground floor flat

yes not people who are being moved around like chess pieces

They need to be stricter on social housing being a temporary abode not a home for life. Once your kids are out of the family home you're out and on the list for a one bed flat. Don't like it? Go to the private sector.

MN people should be moved out and not have secure tenancies
Also MN im not living near social housing cos its a right ghetto

It's not about secure tenancies it's about meeting need. A single person doesn't need a 3 bedroom house with a garden, a family needs that.

This. Stop right to buy.

I would love to see a government driven, country wide strategy to deliver affordable housing where it is needed the most.

We live in a lovely village in a tourist spot and the only housing that gets built is the unaffordable, god awful rows of over expensive, badly built houses that only investors can afford. Half are empty because they are investment homes, a quarter are holiday lets and the last quarter are bought by retirees. No one who works in the area with a young family stands a chance of getting a property.

People in the countryside get accused of being NIMBYs (and some are) but most of us would love some actually affordable, well thought out housing driven by local need and not just greedy developer profit.

We are also increasingly seeing the social housing in the village not going to locals who need it but being used to remove problem families from cities. This is a disaster all round. You can’t move people away from employment and support systems and expect them to thrive. Madness

Hope childless colleagues remember these attitudes next time they are asked to cover Christmas shifts for parents.

This but I wouldn't prioritise non-immigrants. I would however ban (or very heavily tax) property ownership by non UK residents. I'd also scrap help to buy (which has only propped up the new build housing market, putting extra money into the hands of large developers) or if they won't bite the bullet there continue it but remove the limit that requires buyers to buy a new build and not an older property so give buyers more choice and to reduce market distortion.
I'd also reform tenancy law to give more security to good tenants (hopefully they are doing this already?)

For someone who clearly hates children and families you spend a lot of time on a parenting website.

Oh - make developers build out the permissions they already hold. In my area alone that is over 9000 properties. My council could grant hundreds of permissions every day and it would make no difference at all to what gets delivered.

I disagree. If we want settled communities where people feel they belong, they can't be looking at the calendar all the time because they are going to lose their home when their circumstances change.

I agree with the PP who said that single people shouldn't be discriminated against. Nobody should. One beds aren't for everyone - specially not older people who might need carers or want visitors when the family has moved out.

That's exactly how nice communities turn into scruffy dumps. The whole point of social housing is security of tenure - lifelong tenancies, and then people know they can invest in their homes, gardens & communities. Society benefits from people having a stake in their local area and putting down roots.

Bear in mind too, that social lets come I un-decorated, un-carpeted, without white goods or furniture. You can't expect people to furnish a house from scratch and then kick them out when you fancy it. That's not how the sector has ever worked.

A family can be in a home for 20 years before being asked to move. Plenty of time to set down roots before moving onto the next chapter of life. What you're advocating for is property hoarding.

Yes that's not nourishing for the soul. Being able to plant a few things and have a pet are fairly low key wants. They're affordable pleasures, too.

We suffer this too. Rural community, and all we get is shoddily built "executive homes" with 3+ bedrooms. The need is actually for 2 bedroom homes (including - maybe particularly, given low incomes in the area- rental units) so people can leave home.

Why should child free people be treated as lesser. And nowhere have i said i hate kids. This line is always trotted out when we stand up for ourselves.

A family can be in a home for 20 years before being asked to move. Plenty of time to set down roots before moving onto the next chapter of life. What you're advocating for is property hoarding.

No I'm not.

I'm advocating for homes for life (if tenants want). If sufficient housing is built, it won't cause a problem.

What has it come to when we accuse people of "hoarding" housing? Housing is a basic need.

They are not going to get rid of buy to let. The government currently pay Serco to rent hundreds of thousands of houses on a long term basis to house asylum seekers. The government, via Sercp, are the largest renters of houses by far. Part of the reason there are so few rental properties available to UK citizens.

Who said you're being treated as lesser? You're saying families shouldn't be in family homes because singletons need them, that's ridiculous.