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?

There are, usual and a great many who are falling for the government's wag-the-dog policies hook, line and sinker.

Dawndonna, it's being treated fairly only if everyone can do the same. Some people can't do the same because they can't afford to own in the area where they would have support, but they are not poor enough or in circumstances that would get them enough points to qualify for social housing.

Therefore none of it is fair, and unfairness towards owners is just as valid as unfairness towards tennants, whether they be social or private tennants is irrelevant.

I dont have the right to say that social tennants shouldn't be better off than owners because I'm an owner. I have the right to say it because I'm a taxpayer, and therefore this is as much my system as it is anyone else's.

'but they are not poor enough or in circumstances that would get them enough points to qualify for social housing.'

Again, assuming all councils and boroughs actually allocate based on points systems. Many of them don't.

"God knows what id do if my elderly parents get sick or frail, because we could never afford to live near them in the south east"

But you could if there was enough social housing! That's the point!

Lots of people are suffering from the ludicrously high house prices. But oddly instead of addressing that, they're just playing Beggar My Neighbour and saying "If I can't have, neither shall you."

True, Expat. Still if it gets the votes,job done.

Houses aren't always assets, they can be a liability! My house flooded recently, I have had to pay insurance premiums and plumbers bills and will have to pay for other things no doubt that aren't covered by the insurance.

If I'd been a social housing tennant I could get moved and repairs done for free, while keeping the money is spend on everything else to buy luxuries like clothes and holidays.

For most people it's only an asset when the mortgage is paid off and there are no maintenance bills to pay, at which point your home could be sold for your old age care anyway.

I wouldn't say owning a house is that great with negative equity and falling prices... And there are plenty of people who can't afford to buy and can't get social housing and have to rent privately. It's all so easy for them is it?

You can call it council house envy if you want to put an emotive spin on it, but why shouldnt people want better avialabiliy of social housing? My godson has recently qualified as a teacher and would love to have social housing available to him. Far fairer to enable more people to get it than hang on to more desirable housing stock for the few.

Sorry expat, I don't mean to assume, but it's true I don't have knowledge of every housing allocation system in the UK.

How is social housing awarded in areas where there isn't a points system?

It is council house envy, noone gave a toss about council house tenants until the last few years.

A great piece of spin and you fell for it.

And why is it so important to you that others not be 'better off' than you?

It's not important to me that others aren't better off than me

Strange thing to say! I'm very happy for people that are better off than me because they or their families have earned it.

It just strikes me as fundamentally unfair and biased towards one section of society if people who pay less into the pot recieve a better standard of living out of it than people who pay more in.

Owellian and colouringin. It's okay, I live in Central London so you don't have to.

My budgeting skills are excellent but they don't stretch to the full gamut of private health care.

It's also beyond my housewifely skills to recruit and retain essential staff in this area. It's a bit of a challenge for health authorities too.

When they talk about health inequalities they're not just talking about poor people.

They're talking about millions of people, who are quite ordinary despite what you think, who suffer problems in the health service owing to the cost of living for essential staff.

It's not just the NHS either. It's education, fire, police - just about every service that makes living in a western economy bearable not to mention keeping that economy going.

Shall we all move down your road?

Yup , that one the" Daily right wing all unemployed single mums anyone not traced back to the doomsday book will /are bringing this country to it"s knees , mail"will feast on ! it will be lapped up , esp. by the "bitter " thou "pillars of society " lot . it is a laugh , Britain , this once great country reduced to this neo nazi pick on ANY, thats any individual who, seems to be getting MORE THAN THEY ARE ENTITLED TOO !!! (BASTARDS),how i worked so hard!do the "coffin test " >>>>If , being dead< you had 3 more minutes off thought , do you reckon those granted few minutes would be used up being bitter about "them ?" >yes?!!!> crikey , you need help!

Serialkipper- I don't know why you're banging your head- I am AGREEING that there should be more social housing- have you read the thread?! I have quite consistently said there should be MORE social housing through selling off the more expensive stock.

I am ALSO (because this isn't a conflicting point but another point) agreeing with those who say that the difficulties facing some social housing tenants are the same as those faced by private owners.. Eg disabled kids, childcare and travel costs

I've realised that the problem with these threads is that there are too many people on them with fixed simplistic views- they think that as soon as you mention that you are a homeowner, you must be totally anti council tenants, and are probably sitting on a gold mine into the bargain.
It was actually quite amusing earlier in the thread when a few people starting banging on about 'why does everyone think council tenants are unemployed?" when nobody had said it! Talk about going into a thread with blind prejudice.

I think this idea is a good one, and the right one when the uk is facing an acute shortage of social housing. Alongside that, I don't think anyone has an automatic right to live in a given area. I would hope that in a few generations time more people will have more choice about where they can live, but it can never be an entitlement -eg 'my great grandparents lived here, therefore so should I' .... It's not really a million miles from 'my grandfather was a doctor/ lawyer/ went to Oxford, therefore I have an automatic right of entry...."

Can someone enlighten me?

These over-entitled council tenants who mustn't expect to live near their jobs in newly expensive areas, and who should move in and out of three-bedroom houses like yo-yos as their children leave home, come back home when HB for youngsters is stopped, granny moves in, etc.

Are these the same council tenants getting £75,000 discounts when they use their Right To Buy? Not privilege, right. £75,000 that would have gone straight to the council to replace that house or use for eg all the elderly care currently being cut?

I think this may be a London issue in some ways. In London a fair bit of he social housing especially in the inner boroughs is not purpose built but "street properties" i.e. the HA, for example, have bought up residential properties and then let them out to Social Housing tenants. So in a residential street you might have 3-4 social housing properties dotted amongst the privately owned ones.

If those street properties are sold, and some of them will be very valuable, think 2 bed flats upwards of £400-500K, where are the new properties going to be built. They won't be built on the next street, they will probably be built miles away as there is so little room for new building in central London. The end result is that an area that had had a reasonable sprinkling of social housing amongst the more wealthy gradually becomes more and more exclusive as all the social housing in that area is sold off and replaced miles away.

janey, sorry, finding it hard to keep up with fast-moving thread. Consider that comment addressed to those on here who are playing Beggar My neighbour.

But I don't at all trust this scheme because of what Butthoseblocks and others have said above. I simply don't believe there will be equivalent replacement of sold off properties.

If there were, it would be completely different.

Why is it a problem if there are streets without any social housing on them though?

The new housing would meet the needs of its tennants and there's no reason why they shouldn't be perfectly nice areas to live in. People may have to commute for work, but plenty of people have to do that anyway.

It wouldn't necessarily be built miles away Bustthoseblocks. Islington has built new council flats and they are in zone 2, near Newington Green so not too far away from the centre. I think there is scope for building within zone 2, there are certainly lots of flats being built in N1/E9 and some of those are private new build and some are shared ownership.

how will residents and councils in the new 'low cost' areas react to having thousands of londoners or whoever foisted on them? will the new houses built with inner city money include the people on the housing list in the new area or will the new area's housing tenants get pushed somewhere else?

atlanticflyer, the new homes will be miles away, each borough in london has hideously long housing lists, if a borough in zone 2 can't accommodate it's own potential tenants how will they find room for former zone 1 tenants or homes? councils will move their housing 'problems' out into kent, hampshire, northamptonshire etc. it will not be a toddle down the road. if one house in chelsea can buy 3 in lambeth, why not buy 6 or 10 somewhere way out of london?

Creighton, presumably the same allocation systems would still apply in each area, and people would be allocated somewhere based on their need.

In the areas that get the new housing, the list may grow, but it would also go down quicker because there would be more housing.

It's not just London.
Someone on MN (who can out themselves on thread if they want) lived in a smarter area of WMidlands but in council housing. They wanted a bigger property (kids getting older, wanting more room) but the only offers were in areas with much poorer quality schooling, and generally more down & out environments.
Of course this person didn't want to have to move miles from friends & family support networks, & current schools & accept poorer quality schools & grotty neighbourhoods. I'm not saying she was entitled, though she was being squeezed out anyway. And more importantly, so were her children. They were the ones paying the price.

The proposal would lead to more social segregation. I see that as a very bad thing. We are well off, but it's brilliant for DC to meet & mix for themselves with kids who have very much less (in every way).

I know there are other issues in this I don't understand, loads being mixed in to this discussion.

will kensington and chelsea build homes for bexley tenants? or will they insist on the homes going to people on k+c's waiting list? how will that benefit bexley to have all these new homes for 'outsiders'?

lljkk, people on this thread are not worried about segregation and closing parts of cities to the range of people who have always lived there?

Why and how was she being squeezed out lljkk?

How do councils actually do that? I didn't think they could force people to move.