Council housing query

[user13842]

When there is a council housing shortage, why do Council’s not manage those living in the homes they have better? For example, I know of someone who lives on their own in a 3-bed council house in my area as their children have now left home. I also know of a family of 4 (2 parents, 2 children) who are living in a small 2 bed council flat. I appreciate this won’t cater for everyone but why do Council’s not routinely check up on who they are housing in what and encourage swaps where appropriate so that everyone is housed according to their needs? Appreciate it isn’t as straightforward as all that but surely it would be relatively easy to create a system to flag suitable swaps when they came up based on regular checks on circumstances.

I also know of a couple who were in council housing for a couple of years despite suddenly earning a lot of money and was very surprised the Council didn’t do regular checks on this to identify those who could afford private renting and move them on for those in need.

Evicting people if their income rises is a terrible idea. It would actively discourage people from earning more or working more hours. Most people aspire to own a house and that is the obvious incentive for people to move out. The answer is to provide enough social housing for those who need it. Britain used to do this pretty well, there is no reason why we can't get close to it at least.

Council rents are lower than HA. The neighbours who back on to me have 3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and a huge garden.

Their rent is lower than my 2 bed place and they are in a lower council tax band.

The rent is more than my private rental I moved out of.

In the 20+ years I have been here the HA have been taken over twice.

Each time the new landlord has found problems / repairs that needed doing.

There was a plan once (think it was Shapps) which was about capturing real time income data on social housing tenants to use that to assess whether tenants could/should move elsewhere. The issue was that the cost of creating, managing and administering the system far outweighed the number of renters who would fall into the move category.

Housing policy (including rent levels) is a complex, historic process with new bits bolted on every now and then. For example, the problem with the bedroom tax wasn’t the principle itself, it was it was applied retrospectively to a policy (allocations). You had families legitimately renting a 3 bed home in line with allocation policies which dictated sex/age of children and allocation of rooms. Overnight the bedroom tax pretended those allocations were void and that moving was feasible. It wasn’t. I remember reading the impact assessment on the day the policy was announced and the wild regional imbalance and ramifications were evident and impossible to absorb with stock reallocations. Housing policy is like that though…

I remember the days when the phrase "property ladder" and home couldnt be used in that way

I agree and it’s a sad state of affairs the way the country is at the moment, especially regarding lack of affordable housing.

Im talking about when people saw it as a home. Not an investment I never heard the phrase "property ladder" growing up

Right to buy has seen nearly 500,000 houses lost to local authorities, these have not been replaced, this should be the priority not moving ppl out of their homes like a game of musical chairs.
Stop right to buy and build new SH.

Yes Treating ppl like chess pieces

It's doubtful that many will be sold under this scheme now, as the discount has been massively reduced.

I think it started at the start of the 2000s - you had Sara Beeny and Kirsty and Phil telling us how to make money out of homes. I wonder if there were other factors - buy to let mortgages?

Yea and I agreed with you and continued saying it’s rubbish how things have changed now.

John Boughtons book Municipal Dreams which i mentioned upread is a good deep dive into it

I really disagree with encouraging better off people to move out of council housing. Downsizing, yes, but I equally think home owners should downsize as needed as well. I don't like the term 'forever home' because that home might be completely unsuitable in the future. Imo we want mixed income, including high income, in council housing not ghettos of poverty. What we need and should be built is massively more council housing, make council landlord of first resort, not last resort. I would also build council housing near hospitals and other such infrastructure for the workers.

They're not means tested and God forbid they ever are.

But it happened.

500,000 properties. Jesus Christ.

Originally criteria for council housing was to be employed, married and 'of good character'. The intention was to have estates with doctors, nurses, bank workers, factory workers, shop workers all living in the same area. It was later it became the poorest, single parents, unemployed, etc.

I live in a 3 bed house with living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, downstairs loo, front and back garden and it's £550 per month.

wow that’s fantastic. I’m aware that the city or location has significant impact, but we paid over three times that for small three bed house with tiny garden. I can see why lifetime tenancies are so sought after.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/26/placemaking-gentrification-london-luxury-apartments-expensive-restaurants-schools