to think that just because I can't afford to live in the most expensive part of town....

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

... I have not been 'socially cleansed' and do not live in a ghetto? Proposal today to sell off expensive social housing and replace with a higher quantity of newly-built, cheaper social housing article here seems to make a lot of sense. Why the emotive language?

I have a garden, a large living room and two double bedrooms in a nice area (not the most expensive). I would say it's the average first buy property which is not a flat/apartment. I will never afford anything better as I am a Carer but it's a roof over my head which benefits my autistic son as he has a secure home.

I still think he idea behind this plan is good evn if some of the comments made were a bit "separate the oils from the naive people". With so many people waiting for housing it is surely a win win situation.

Mrbojangles, I have no desire to live in Primrose Hill but should I do so I will remember I am on benefits and can afford it

Your pst is so full of venom it's amazing.

You DO know some if us are on benefits for a reason don't you?
You DO know some of us had a lifetime of work beforehand?

Yes, if a council house exists in Primrose Hill then selling it might provide enough for 4 family homes in a less expensive area. That is why I would support this and NOT because you feel hard done by.

That example house is actually nicer than my house :) It's what I think of when someone says 'an average house for a family of two adults and two children' though.

When we bought our house, we had a certain budget and had to make compromises to get the bits that we thought were most important. So we got 3 bedrooms, a bathroom with a window, a garden, a dining room and in the right catchment area. We also got a small back garden, on-street parking, a busy road and steps to get to the front door.

Maybe you're right, outraged, I read it differently.

colouring - how many people can afford to buy a home, though?

I am really lucky where I live, I like it, and it's a beautiful city. But there is no possibility you could afford to buy unless you were already pretty well off. That's the reality in a lot of places.

I think sometimes, people sort of forget that blocks of flats are normal housing for a lot of people, and renting is a normal way of life for a lot of people. Maybe I am under-estimating how good that article thinks an average house is, but I'd be worried that some people on this thread are over-estimating how good 'average' is and expecting that this scheme will end up building nicer places than they will.

I honestly don't know who's right, I'd just be concerned.

MrBoJangles I do not want to live on Primrose Hill thank you.
Before I left H we worked and claimed cb and ctc/wtc. Now I CANNOT work as I simply cannot afford child care for the 3 DC not that I can get care for DS1 (12) I hate not working and being reliant on benefits BUT the DCs and I need to eat and have a roof over our heads. As soon as DD is at full time school I will be able to work.

I understand concerns, but ultimately if more people end up being housed in accommodation that is good enough to meet their needs, then I don't really thnk it matters what the housing is like in comparison to what others have.

They are talking about selling off the expensive housing when it becomes available naturally, and the expensive housing is only the housing that costs more than average in a given area. There is no need for the HAs/Councils to have property on their books that is above average in the area as a whole (so including social and private) they just need average properties.

Where are all these fancy houses, because where I live the council houses are just average houses.

Or does this only apply to London and it's ridiculous house prices?

'Worse than most' is just emotive language. There is nothing wrong with average, which is what this idea is all about anyway - having more homes of an average standard and value rather than fewer which are more pricey and upmarket.

We have lived in plenty of places which are probably 'worse than most' but it doesn't mean they were awful. Our first home was a boxy little 1 bed new build on an estate. Not my dream house, but entirely adequate, and we certainly didn't go around with an entitled feeling of ' this home is worse than most!'

I have no idea whether our current home is 'average' or below average or whatever, on a national scale. What matters is that it's what we can afford on our incomes. If one of us loses our job, we would no doubt have to downsize to something smaller and in a cheaper area. That's reality. No point getting our knickers in a twist about it.

I don't think it's London. From what I can gather, the big problem in London is that people needing larger homes often end up in private accommodation with a relatively expensive rent to match. Elsewhere the under-occupancy issue is more prevalent and there's been discussion about encouraging sole-occupants (often elderly) to downsize and vacate so that a family can have somewhere to live. If these properties are large, expensive and need a lot of maintenance it would make sense to sell once vacated.

It makes sense that people with lower incomes have smaller houses anyway. Big houses are expensive to run, so where's the sense in giving someone that needs social housing because their income isn't big enough for them to buy their own housing, a great big house which they then have to heat and decorate?

There are no great big council houses where I live most are 2 or 3 bedroomed just average sized houses.

I have a disabled friend not too far from Primrose Hill. Currently she's unable to work, although she has in the past. Perhaps you'd like to discuss it with her Mrbojangles.

Orwellian Are you Dame Shirley Porter in another life?

There is no issue if the housing to be build is adequate.

My point is that I would worry, based on the language of this article, that what will actually be built will not be adequate.

I could be wrong about that, but to me, it sounds like a set of excuses to explain why they're going to build something substandard on the cheap.

I agree with this policy. I am in a council flat in London but although it's central, it's not the most desirable of locations and most people who can afford to buy would probably choose to live further from the centre than the area I'm in. I am currently looking for a council swap and I'm staggered by the type of properties I see which are council/HA owned - not necessarily big places but in very expensive parts of London in the more sought after type of converted street properties. Look at this 3 bed flat in Notting Hill for example.

It sounds like a good idea - sell off expensive houses replace with more housing in a cheaper area.

My concern would be that the cheaper land and housing would be further from jobs and other services. This would lead to less work opportunists or higher commutes and higher transport costs.

I suppose the assumption would be that lower wages would rise accordingly so lower paid people could manage to do the lower paid jobs in the richer areas where the reality would probably be more over crowding of the remaining affordable housing in the richer areas or greater poverty.

There would also be the temptation to make the housing in the cheaper areas - cheap slum housing like the tower bock of the past. Poor housing is a cause of many health issues so would cause NHS costs to rise - I suppose that is a non issue if there is no NHS in the future.

I don't think planning regulations allow anyone to build things that are deliberately substandard and on the cheap any more. Small... yes. Not much garden... yes. Gold-plated/marble/mahogany fittings ... no. Substandard... no. Besides which, given that social housing includes an obligation to maintain, it would be a false economy to build something that needed continual fixing.

Was Notting Hill always a desirable place to live? Or has it been taken over by the oh so trendy crew?

I have no clue, I don't live in London.

I also think London and it housing is very different from other parts of the UK - this policy may well make huge sense there but less so in the rural town I live in with poor transport links.

CogitoErgoSometimes
it would be a false economy to build something that needed continual fixing

It would but politicians with tight budgets don't always have the luxury of looking long term. Still tight regulations with minimal standards including energy efficiency ones could get round that issue.

This proposal is economically illiterate and shortsighted.
Because we have a ridiculously inflated housing market and an increasing tendency to bash people on lower incomes, this translates in Mailspeak to people in social housing not deserving to live in naice areas. Well why not chase everyone out of Westminster to X area. Then when prices there go up lets kick everyone out again. Yes many people living in social housing are pensioners and ?economically inactive? ? there will be pensioners who?ve been living in Notting Hill since long before it became desirable to the Camerons and their ilk ? but why should that matter if there?s a shortage of housing for the rich?

Oh fgs NO ONE has a god given right to live in any particular area - "naice" or otherwise.
It's about using the available resources in the most effective way possible. Just as if you fund your housing totally by yourself, you use your available resources the best you can.

I havent seen any logical argument against this idea (plenty of rhetoric and some piss poor attempts to argue against it on the radio earlier) but no real sound logical argument against why social housing shouldn't be distributed more equitably.

Thats what I thought, if they build smaller shoeboxes houses elsewhere and then that area becomes desirable will they sell those houses off again?

Sounds like the rich do think they have a given right to live in the most desirable areas to me.

As this thread has proved, 'desirable' means different things to different people!
When people comment about 'the rich' being able to afford central London, a whole load of people pipe up with 'well I wouldn't want to live there anyway'

Anyway, the politics of envy is a pointless route to take. There are millions of people in the world better off than me, some by lucky birthright, some by talent/ skills/ hard work.

This argument isn't about any of that- its about making social housing available to more people- this is something which is long overdue in this country, and it's just selfish and greedy for anyone to prioritise keeping expensive more upmarket housing for fewer, rather than perfectly satisfactory housing for more

Plaistow, the problem isn't that there is a shortage of housing for the rich, the problem is that there is a shortage of housing for people that can't afford to buy their own property, and that's what this proposal is trying to help solve.

Pensioners won't be kicked out of their expensive homes, these home will just be sold when they become available because the person has died or moved.

You can't chase owners out of properties because they are OWNERS!

Usual, Notting Hill has not always been an expensive area, in fact when I used to live in Kensington as a child it was a pretty crap area as they go.

They wouldn't sell houses off just because an area became desireable, if this proposal continues they would sell them off when they became naturally available and they have become above average price for the area.