In a single graph.



As good a point at which to start a discussion as any.

Its a great shame to see how the local authority building program falls off and then disappears off the graph in the 1990s - the peak that you see in the 1970s is when I was employed in the building trade and a huge percentage of our work was on local authority new build schemes - times were hard in the 1970s, 3 day week, power blackouts, recessions, wage freezes, etc etc etc, and yet money was found for social housing by both flavours of government - also surprising to see that the level of private home building has barely changed at all since the 1960s.

... and it's pretty clear to see that nothing has replaced it ... so prices rocket.

Why does the housing association line track so closely to the private market line?

Is the availability and therefore price of land not a factor in the reduction in the amount of homes built?

It's also pretty clear under which government the supply was restricted. Why did they do that? Let's think what else happened - oh, yes a credit bubble (based on rising property prices to underpin borrowings) to create a feeling of rising wealth in order to mask the reality of economic decline.

Still don't think Labour got us into this mess?

Therein as I have been saying for ages also lies the difficulty in finding a solution through mass construction. If house prices decline then borrowings won't be covered by asset prices and banks will collapse.

Bull[is[/ihit

House prices would have to decline to 20% of their current value to cause anything like a genuine problem.

Notwithstanding that, there could still be a privately-funded, mass housebuilding programme that would provide a real stimulus to the economy, there's absolutely no reason for those houses to be built to sell. There's plenty of demand and a concommitant wish to fund, long-term rental properties

The rapid decline in local authority funded house building was taken up by housing associations - back in the 1970s when all local authorities received budget allocation or central government loans to build rental homes the housing association was a fairly rare animal, usually restricted to building and running old folks homes (RBLHA for instance), the company iw roked for did work for a handful of housing associations but most of our income was from local authorities and private housebuilders.

I personally don't believe that there has ever been a shortage of house building land, just a lack of imagination and finance for rental properties, it took a tightening of green belt useage in the late 1980s for the private sector to turn towards inner city brownfield sites and slowly realise that a sector that they had ignored to date was the next golden goose - one and two bed apartments built in tower blocks on cheap brownfield sites, you'll also note in every city centre just how many of those apartment blocks were not rented out direct from the developer but sold to private landlords, the developers made their money and moved on and hardly any of them were built for social housing simply because the local authorities were not allowed to build by that time and the associations either had a complete lack of foresight or no access to cheap funding due to political will which prefered to encourage individuals to sponsor rental properties rather than central government.

If it were so easy and not reliant on public money why is the mass housebuilding programme not underway - surely if you are correct it is a no brainer and every commercial builder would be clambering to get on board?

My way doesn't require one single penny of public money, unfortunately neither does it provide massive profit margins for avaricious speculators.

I've detailed it often enough on here, do a bit of work and find it for yourself

Quite clearly your theory is just that theory - simply not workable in the economic climate in which we find ourselves in. Businesses are not charities, they require profits/cash flow to keep functioning - even the Quakers who you so admire did their charitable deeds from positions of wealth unimaginable to us. Businesses are not going to undertake huge projects for little return, the risks are too high even you can surely see the flaws in your argument?

Which is where the public funding element of social housing kicks in, as someone stated earlier this week, "public services are supposed to cost money, its why we pay our taxes".

In theory there was nothing wrong with the now demonised buy-to-let schemes of the 1990s, other than the fact that several elements in the ladder needed to make a profit along the way whether it be from the construction of the buildings to the financiers who lent the money to private individuals to purchase them in the first place, and its that need for the financiers to make ongoing profits from the lending that is keeping private rents artificially high now - its cheaper to buy than rent, if only you can raise a deposit, which is not the way it should be.

A non-political overview of the country's housing stock in the 1980s should have decreed a proper market price for existing social housing stock without discounts to tenants (try that one on if you rent a car from Avis and then offer them a quarter of its value to purchase it when you take it back just because you've rented it for a while), only on the proviso that monies raised from sales were re-invested into new housing stock or refurbishment of existing stock.

There's nothing wrong with a government investing taxpayers money into housing for its citizens, its only political attitudes that look upon the topic as if its something they trod in on the street and walked into the carpet - the stock doesn't lose its value (have you seen what decent ex-council houses sell for now), the construction of them was always of top quality (we hated working on council house sites only because each one had a clerk of works, you never saw them on private housebuilder sites) and the maintenance SHOULD have been kept up to date were it not for political will.

Political hatred of other classes has screwed this country for the last thirty years.

Now where I have ever said that profit couldn't be made or that businesses should operate as charities?

Do a search on my previous posts on the subject but if that proves a little too difficult for you, have a read of this:
[i
Before laying a single brick: introduce Land Value Taxation on all undeveloped land and any land containing an empty property. Based on the maximum developed potential of the land, the imposition of LVT should be sufficient to stimulate either a building explosion or the release of suitable building land onto the market. That should see a marked drop in land values and although it may be viewed as engineering a reduction in land prices, it will only mitigate the false increase in land values following Right to Buy.

Central and local governments control thousands of hectares of land suitable for house building, this land is owned by US the taxpayer, it is only administered by governments. So release this land to housing charities and other not-for-profit housing organisations, on 99 year leases at peppercorn rents. Allow these organisations to go to the money markets to attract the investment to fund construction. The actual cost of building a house (materials and labour) is only around 40% of its total value, the remaining 60% is the cost of the land it sits upon. There are many European institutional investors who would see the attraction in long-term investment, paying an attractive return.

These new houses could then be rented at around 50% of the prevailing rate, giving the investors a suitably attractive, long-term return and retaining a buffer for maintenance. They should also be under a robust, non-challengeable covenant to prevent any future right to buy,

The pluses include:

1) increased employment in the building sector, leading to a lower benfits bill and an increase in Income Tax & NI revenues

2) Increased employment in retail sectors - all these houses will require furnishing - with similar improvements in tax & NI revenues as in 1)

3) Lower rents leading to reductions in Housing and other benefits

4) Lower rents in the private sector through a knock-on effect

It would also require a change to the current mindset that everyone should aspire to be a home-owner. Prior to the 1980s, there was no stigma involved in renting your home, plenty of middle-class families lived on very attractive council housing developments.

There would of course be some losers: Buy to Let landlords and the banks who loaned them the money are the most obvious. But hey, we're all in it together ain't we?[/i

I'm still waiting for someone to offer a serious argument against, care to have a go?

The idea that there should be no benefit to buying doesn't make sense - there is a risk in purchase that has to be reflected in the longer term benefit of doing so. At the end of the mortgage term the house is yours reward for the risk and no further payments are you suggesting that rental properties should also be given for free once the house is paid for?

On the rest I agree - I don't have an issue with government borrowing to fund house building I am not as convinced as you that it will be the panacea to all the issues you think it will.

On Mr Fish's idea that businesses should suddenly all become altruist it is just that a pie in the sky idea and shows a complete lack of understanding of the way business is financed and why they cannot invest huge sums in projects with little return.

OK - we are not in the 1970's society has moved on people want to own their own house - they see 5-10 years of pain for multiple years of gain as the mortgage becomes less of a burden until it is eventually insignificant. I own my house now if I had to rent it I would be paying 800-1000 a month. I would be paying that for the next 40 years? I am not subject to upward only rent increases - even charities have to recover increased/inflationary costs through higher rents. We are an ageing population which would need the government to continue supporting their rent well into old age - surely encouraging home ownership reduces the burden on the tax payer? We have had this argument before - to which your reply was "Well it is working now".

If you want to increase house building surely do this in line with credit suppliers through government guarantee - given the choice people want to own their own home - there is no getting away from that.

Your view that putting a tax on land will suddenly see a clammer to build - bonkers, in a country with limited land it is suddenly all going lose value - reversal of supply and demand!! Builders have plenty in their land bank they are not developing because they cannot sell the completed housing. Are saying the local authorities would also be subject to your LVT too - wow our council tax will end up in the stratosphere.

Your idea is so pie in the sky as to be laughable - has this ever been implemented anywhere - if not it is probably an indication of how good an idea it is.

Well I didn't suggest either point but for what its worth I agree although I'd suggest that the risk during a 25 year mortgage term is not your but the lenders and their reward is the interest earned, its win/win.

We're currently going through all of this with my eldest now, she is looking to move out, both her and her partner are employed full time in "professional" jobs, their joint income is roughly the same as my wife and me, they have been given "the nod" from at least one lender that they would not have a problem lending to them, and yet its the prospect of a £16000 deposit that is stopping them.

They've been looking at renting but the rates are so high around here that once committed to renting you are caught in a trap of using your salary to pay the rent with nothing left to save for a mortgage deposit.

Its not insurmountable in their case and no doubt we'll be called upon to help out - the paradox is that my wife works in a hotel that hosts two to three weddings most weekends, some of which are billed in excess of £20,000, yes, even in this strife some people have the cost of a decent deposit for a new house to waste on one days worth of wedding celebration, you have to shake your head sometimes.

You are risking the deposit, fees and taxes and also the potential losses in the early years if things don't pan out. As house prices are pretty static the risk to the lender becomes greater if things go wrong.

We are in a similar position to you - our youngest has got a job in Glasgow with Morgan Stanley - it is much cheaper for us to buy him a flat than rent him something. We are also in a fortunate position of being able to use the equity in our house as a guarantee against the flat - another hidden benefit of ownership. Agree the deposit is an issue for youngsters but is it a bad thing that they have to give somethings up - clubbing, holidays - to get something more substantial. Short term pain long term gain.

Occasionally we need politicians who are able to look back to previous generations and try and work out how the best bits of their time in power worked and the model for local authority housing is a point in question if we go back to the 1960s/70s.

There was never a requirement to make a profit from social housing.

Thats the main point, there was never a need to make a profit, it was social housing for the use of tenants who paid reasonable rents to tenant the property with no expectation or requirement to own the property and the knowledge that in their retirement they would simply shift down into a retirement bungalow at a cheaper rent, in summary the local authority would provide their housing needs for a lifetime at a rent that was set at a level as to be affordable.

The "profit" in this was a population who were settled into a way of life, could budget around the weekly rent, knew exactly where they were going and why they were working, based their budgets on cash in hand and the large majority of them became part of a local community that lived, entertained and died together.

Sounds like some sort of fictional utopia doesn't it ?

I look at my wifes parents who rented all of their lives, took on a brand new 3 bed council house in 1964 and lived there until they died, my father-in-law had the opportunity to purchase his council house for the last fifteen years of his life and yet he never would, his youngest son almost bought it one year (he was in the RAF but "domiciled" at the house and had the right to buy) but my father-in-law wouldn't let him, as far as he was concerned it wasn't his house to buy it was the councils and when he died then someone else would benefit from renting it.

He wasn't an overtly political man, would never speak of politics, but he had a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong in a community and it was those beliefs that I always admire.

What is life expectancy now compared to the 60s/70s you cannot change the mind set of a generation. LC would still have to support all these people in social housing as they could not afford to pay the rent on the OA pension - we just end up a greater burden on those paying council tax. Encouraging ownership reduces this exposure. I have nothing against renting but it just seems money down the drain that will continue your whole life.

And yet it works just fine throughout Europe ?

I used to have an agency deal with a French company and every year they would recall their UK based (French) rep and replace them with another who would arrive in this country with an expectation to be able to spend perhaps one weekend looking for somewhere to rent for a year - and they were always looking in the London area.

I can't tell you how many times I had the same conversation with the new rep about how we British were obsessed with home ownership and for what reason.

I can tell you exactly when the mindset of a generation that you speak off started - it started towards the end of 1982, I was working in Newcastle and our office was above a branch of Northern Rock, I was living in hotels at the company expense (for six years - LOL) but they were suggesting that it was about time I found somewhere to live, the very next week a sign appeared int he window of Nthn Rock advertising mortgages avaialble, I went in and enquired and the manager told me that this was the first time in the history of the building society that they had ever openly advertised mortgages, until then you had to prove your worth to them for several years until they'd consider you, I walked in off the street and got one like buying a pound of apples.

£500 deposit borrowed off my dad and a mortgage of £8900 - those were the days

When will you ever read and comprehend what is in front of you?

I never said we were in the 1970s but that does not prevent us from taking something that worked well for 30+ years before R-T-B was introduced. Property valuations are mostly made up of land values not bricks & mortar. If the land is leased at a peppercorn rent to a housing charity, they can then reflect that in the rents charged. This will lead to massively reduced bill for rent subsidies.




Credit to finance house building would be available from institutional investors. They need long-term investments that may not offer the same returns as short-term but offer a greater degree of safety. There are many such investors in the EU who would be willing to fund such schemes, if no UK based funds were interested.

There are over 1 million families in the UK who aren't really bothered whether they rent or buy, they just want somewhere affordable to live. This is the primary reason for a house, or at least it used to be. Houses should not be viewed as investments, they should be viewed as homes.




The owners of empty land would have three options, either sit on the land and pay a tax as if it were developed, develop the land and either sell or rent the developments or sell the land to someone willing to do either of the first two options. Local authorities and central government should not be sitting on empty development land, that is what my scheme is all about.

The long-term objective of LVT is to replace other taxes. LVT is simple to administer, unlike personal or corporate wealth, land cannot be offshored



Similar idea have been implemented elsewhere, not least in that bastion of socialist ideology - The United States of America

One more connected issue - the next political hot potato will be the "bedroom tax" which kicks in in April, this will be Camerons Poll tax and its caused by his inability to see that many of those living in rented LA accomodation (especially in the South of England) are in work and not his loathsome shirkers, will actually have voted for him in 2010, and see their houses as homes and not something that you rent for a short period and move on.

There are tens of thousands of example arising now of people who are facing £10-£15 a WEEK increase in their rents for this obscene tax on the fact that they have a spare room in the house and a Minister thinks that they are living a life of selfish obstinacy at the taxpayers expense regardless of the fact that they are paying the going rate for the size of house anyway.

All of which was initially started by the fact that the demand for rented accomodation is for three bed dwellings of which there is a shortage and has been for a coupleof decades at least during which time no-one in goevrnment has thought to address the situation until we are left with a government who's idea of sorting it is to hit the poorest very hard with a view to levering them out and relocating them to an area with smaller dwellings regardless of family roots or accesibility to work etc.

Thoughtless government again.

Playing devil's advocate - If you want to make best use of the housing stock it makes sense that two people live in a one bedroomed property and three people live in a two bedroomed property. Why should we as home owning tax payers help to support others living in houses that are way bigger than they need?

Because then, in a huge leap of irony, this Tory-led government is then behaving in a manner most suited to communist Russia or China which would be highly amusing were it not affecting the lives of tens of thousands of people (actually a couple of hundred thousand).

Not only is this government of "light government", the government of "individual choice and responsibility" now forcing the unemployed into unpaid work, but its forcing them to move house on a whim due to them having, in a government officials opinion, one room too many - if we heard of it happening in China we'd shake our head and tutt loudly and show the page from The Express to the person sitting next to us and say something like "these bloody commies eh ?"

I suppose that both the extreme left wing and the extreme right wing of politics have a lot in common in that the pendulum swings back to a tight state control on both wings and in that we shouldn't be surprised, but the party which presented itself as a couple of fresh faced posh boys three years ago is now slowly revealing itself as a party of two fresh faqced clueless puppets controlled by some very right wing reactionary's who's ideals and policies are getting more insidious by the hour.


Put simply, the two people living in a three bed council house claiming housing benefit are probably there as a change of circumstances, health or family downsizing, certainly employment too, they may have lived in the house, which they viewed until now as "their home" for many years, will have paid the rent for a three bed house for many years, and now have a local government "inspector" knocking on the door telling them to pay a punative tax or relocate, often several miles away, on a whim of government.


Would you be the local government "inspector" who knocked at the door of this family ? [urlhttp://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/bedroom-tax-blow-for-becky-s-family-1-5434085[/url

Lord Freud - Welfare Reform Minister.

''People who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks; they've got least to lose''.

[urlhttp://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/lord-freud-risks-corpses-and-slums.html[/url

first, you should really understand what a tax is. second, if you live in la housing and pay the rent yourself then this won't affect you one iota. third, people move all the time, and have done since we came out of the caves, i've had to due to being unable to afford the property i was in which now means a daily commute of 125miles. fourth, it isn't their house.