Houses

[wanderlust]

You are absolutely bang on mon ami. Drive up past the LIDL towards Pendle Hill, going past Shawbridge on the left and you will no doubt notice they are trying to connect Wiswell to Clitheroe and not a "Council House" in sight.

Councils have a responsibility to provide "social housing" and usually insist on any new development to include and element of social housing.
Developers are interested in building fancy houses that they can sell at inflated prices so social housing is not seen as being profitable enough - so they do the minimum they can get away with - and in a bent system where developers wield political and economic power they can get away with murder. The thing is that they bought up vast tracts of the rural landscape years ago so they want to profit from them.

But the key questions for me are
1. what's wrong with renting?
Many EU countries have 70% renting and because the rental market is buoyant it is competitive, so quality increases and prices are controlled by the market because there are more rental properties to choose from. Need to change the British "castle" psyche
2. what's wrong with repairing and maintaining urban sites rather than continually pushing into rural areas?
There's loads of brown field sites abandoned and decrepit in most towns so why not compulsorily purchase them and rebuild the urban environment with rental properties? Which would also go some way towards regenerating the high streets?
F*** the rural developers.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Councils have a responsibility to provide "social housing" and usually insist on any new development to include and element of social housing.
Developers are interested in building fancy houses that they can sell at inflated prices so social housing is not seen as being profitable enough - so they do the minimum they can get away with - and in a bent system where developers wield political and economic power they can get away with murder. The thing is that they bought up vast tracts of the rural landscape years ago so they want to profit from them.

But the key questions for me are
1. what's wrong with renting?
Many EU countries have 70% renting and because the rental market is buoyant it is competitive, so quality increases and prices are controlled by the market because there are more rental properties to choose from. Need to change the British "castle" psyche
2. what's wrong with repairing and maintaining urban sites rather than continually pushing into rural areas?
There's loads of brown field sites abandoned and decrepit in most towns so why not compulsorily purchase them and rebuild the urban environment with rental properties? Which would also go some way towards regenerating the high streets?
F*** the rural developers.

Not often you talk sense Lusty but you are bang on with this one mate.

If three numpties like you, me and sinkov can tell you what's wrong in about 10 posts on a footy forum, WTF are this government doing about it besides the square root of f*ck all?

[sinkov]

Councils have a responsibility to provide "social housing" and usually insist on any new development to include and element of social housing.
Developers are interested in building fancy houses that they can sell at inflated prices so social housing is not seen as being profitable enough - so they do the minimum they can get away with - and in a bent system where developers wield political and economic power they can get away with murder. The thing is that they bought up vast tracts of the rural landscape years ago so they want to profit from them.

But the key questions for me are
1. what's wrong with renting?

There's a huge estate going up off Waddington Rd, Clitheroe, Barratts and David Wilson seem to be sharing the site and it's massive. The cheapest Barratts offer is a 3 bed detached at £293,000, Wilson's cheapest is a 4 bed at just over £400,000.

The social housing they are obliged to provide is a tiny terraced row of just 8 bungalows, better than nothing I suppose, but it just doesn't touch the sides of the social housing shortage.

IMO the problem with renting is security of tenure. No one wants to find themselves potentially homeless, or having to move on the whim of a landlord. I would actually have moved into rented accommodation about a year ago, but for this very problem.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

There's a huge estate going up off Waddington Rd, Clitheroe, Barratts and David Wilson seem to be sharing the site and it's massive. The cheapest Barratts offer is a 3 bed detached at £293,000, Wilson's cheapest is a 4 bed at just over £400,000.

The social housing they are obliged to provide is a tiny terraced row of just 8 bungalows, better than nothing I suppose, but it just doesn't touch the sides of the social housing shortage.

IMO the problem with renting is security of tenure. No one wants to find themselves potentially homeless, or having to move on the whim of a landlord. I would actually have moved into rented accommodation about a year ago, but for this very problem.

To add to the discussion, mon ami we decided to sell rather than let a townhouse we own in Bolton. It's nothing special, mid-terraced with front and back gardens, separate garage, three bedrooms. It sold within one hour.

Out of interest with this thread I googled and it's estimated 250,000 people are homeless in the UK. Something is going seriously wrong somewhere.

[Supersub6]

To add to the discussion, mon ami we decided to sell rather than let a townhouse we own in Bolton. It's nothing special, mid-terraced with front and back gardens, separate garage, three bedrooms. It sold within one hour.

Out of interest with this thread I googled and it's estimated 250,000 people are homeless in the UK. Something is going seriously wrong somewhere.

Your last sentence BT, does it say how many choose to be homeless, does it go into ethnicity or is it just a media figure that nobody has fully researched?
The reason that I ask is that I am aware of several Veterans who, sadly, prefer to remain homeless because they have received a lot of hassle from some members of Joe Public when they have been living in housing. It is a very sad world.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Your last sentence BT, does it say how many choose to be homeless, does it go into ethnicity or is it just a media figure that nobody has fully researched?
The reason that I ask is that I am aware of several Veterans who, sadly, prefer to remain homeless because they have received a lot of hassle from some members of Joe Public when they have been living in housing. It is a very sad world.

Long story cut short mein Freund, a decade ago I was involved in a Labour Party project organised by a prominent Shadow Cabinet Minister. I was disgusted with the self serving "Look At Me" attitude to what is a very serious problem in Manchester.

Bottom line Supersub6 is if ordinary citizens like thee and me don't congregate and take ownership of this problem, no-one else will.