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New council housing in England may be removed from right to buy scheme (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Originally, council housing was supposed to be available for everyone.
A socially funded, reasonably priced, decent accommodation for anyone.
With the added bonus for the council that they have properties vulnerable people could be housed in at cost.

And there are still legacy tenants from those days happily living in their council places.

R2B was brought in, with the stated idea of giving long-term renters the opportunity to buy at a discount.
A leg up onto owning and running their own house.
Unfortunately with the way it was implemented, it ended up gutting the supply of council houses, until we reach today.
Where only the most vulnerable have a sniff of a chance of being allocated a council house.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, if I was in charge I'd build council housing for the rich, too (like the Barbican). Then the money currently going on rent and mortgages could be better invested elsewhere!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Unfortunately with the way it was implemented, it ended up gutting the supply of council houses, until we reach today.

Not, Unfortunately. This was openly the Tory plan.

They spent the 1970s arguing that council housing was unfair competition on the private sector. And as such by their ideals harmful to the economy.

R2B was originally set up to reduce the supply of council housing. This was why thatcher banned Local auths from using sales revenue to invest in new council housing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I was talking about this to someone the other day and I think some sort of rent-to-buy scheme might make sense. They can still buy their hosues but instead of being helped by a discount they are helped by building up equity in the house?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Based.

People won't like it, but this is absolutely the right decision for the country.

Either don't sell them, or sell them for full market value and put any profit into a fund to build more council houses.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

sell them for full market value and put any profit into a fund to build more council houses

This is probably the way to go, because then the Tories won't be able to run on 'Bring Back Right To Buy'.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Unfortunately I fear they could force councils to sell for less than market value again, then sit back and relax as the media fellate them for being so kind to the poorer people in society (whilst completely ignoring the wider societal problems that causes)