www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Trent.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Trent.html

Completely different situation from Dame Shirl's gerrymandering.

Presumably Grant Shapps has contacted every single one of those landlords coming up on his Rightmove search to check that they are happy to accept tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit?

Otherwise it's like telling 1,000 unemployed orthopaedic surgeons that there are 1,000 local job vacancies for dentists. About as pointless as Mr Shapps himself.

It's let's play political football with the poor time. Both the government and the Labour party are disgraceful.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2012/apr/24/why-newham-council-housing-fixSome interesting points here[/url, although I don't entirely agree with the stuff about rent caps – other countries manage it. Indeed, if memory serves, we're the only country in western Europe that doesn't have any rent regulation.

Newham council have written to 1,179 different housing associations (according to the BBC article quoting the leader of the council) so you would have to be a bit mad to do that to make a political point.

I have to say though the fact they wrote to one in Stoke has highlighted the issue so if that is playing politics with this and got this issue to the fore why is that a bad thing?

Or would you rather it be brushed under the carpet and hope it goes away?

There are 88,000 families in London who are on housing benefit that live in properties with rents above the new government guidelines which means they have to move. Where to?

The problem is obvious. A lack of social housing that the less well off can afford to rent (council houses). Without such property being available the Tories beloved market forces come into play and we end up where we are with private rents through the roof and housing benefit going with it which means we the taxpayer are funding private landlords!

The Tory solution? As Boris has said a "Kosovo-style social cleansing of London".

The sensible solution? Tackle high rents realising first you can't let market forces do that for you because it clearly doesn't work.

As to Snapps he would never countenance private landlords being compelled to take housing benefit tenants so his comments are typical Tory spin.

There'll be 2,800 almost-new, vacant homes available in the borough by the end of the year, why would Newham need to ship families out?

Who will own the homes, how much will they cost to rent?

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/24/tory-westminster-council-tenants-derbyIt's not just Newham[/url.

Dunno but this is from the 2012 website:

[iAfter the Games

After the Games, the Olympic and Paralympic Village will be a lasting legacy of essential new housing for east London. It will be transformed into 2,800 new homes, including 1,379 affordable homes.

The communities that develop in the area after the Games will be supported by new parks, open space, transport links, and community facilities including Chobham Academy – a world-class new education campus with 1,800 places for students aged 3-19.[/i

Quite why all of the 2,800 cannot be "affordable" (whatever that may mean) is beyond me, although a mixed housing development with a majority "affordable" is something of a first in this country. Usually it's the other way round and the "affordable" housing seems to be magically allocated to relatives or friends of councillors and developers.

I'd dearly love to see a London Mayor (or Mayor of any major conurbation) follow an initiative like that set by John Norquist, a previous Mayor of Milwaukee and a strong advocate of [url=http://www.cnu.org/New Urbanism[/url

On the housing:



[url=http://www.stratfordlondon.info/developments/athletes-villageLink[/url

'Affordable' is a joke.

A block of 72 one to three bed flats on our road, which was built where an old warehouse once stood, had to have half of the flats available as 'affordable'.

When they went on sale about five years ago, the cheapest private one was on the market for £250,000. So, since the 'affordable' ones were half that price, an 'affordable' one bed flat would have been £125,000.

So, on the basis of what was considered sensible, you need an income of £41,666 per annum to afford one.

That, according to [url=http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Country=United_Kingdom/Salarythis[/url, is less than a senior software engineer/developer/programmer earns and just about what a "project manager, information technology (IT)" pulls in.

So the overwhelming majority are utterly screwed – even doing jobs that some on here would consider acceptable (and not the menial ones that people should aspire their way out of, because after all, those jobs don't really need doing).