Properties sell-off by Southwark - how can this be right?

[DJKillaQueen]

H...Rent control has not been bad for the dutch, Scandinavians and germans though. And nor has it been bad for all the French people I know personally, living in France either. And in my previous post I made some recommendations of what could be done to ensure the scenarios you referred to don't happen. Some of those things are already part of housing law anyway, because even under the current system, some landlords have to be forced to meet the minimum regulations.

Why are you so opposed to single people having a one bedroom place? What is this this prejudice all about? People of all ages can find themselves on their own. Or are you only opposed to those in receipt of some kind of benefit having a one bedroomed place. Have you any idea just how small most council one bedroomed flats are for example? You might have a forty something contract worker for example. Soemtimes they are employed, sometimes they are not. Should they be forced to live in a single room with just a bed and wardrobe (because what else can you get in one room?). It's such an absurd suggestion to prejudice against single people in this way and especially for those that spend their entire life single (and there are many people like that).

What you tend to find with council accomodation is that the highest turnover is in one bedroomed flats anyway. I don't know if the same is true in the private rented sector. But certainly in council housing the pressure points are not single bed flats. It's the dire shortage of 3 and 4 bedroom properties that are a problem. And hence the proposal to extend the exisiting legislation to force those underoccupying those kinds of properties to downsize. I don't think many people have an issue with that.

When you talk of new builds you don't say whether you mean private contruction or council and HAs. I personally think we should have both. One will build to the basic standard and dimensions, the other will build to maximise profit, so you'll get two types of roperty anyway. And the previous government did at least have some incentives to partner commercial construction with HAs but they didn't build enough.

It seems that building more homes is the only option you favour (along with an end to tax breaks) but that won't happen quickly enough to readjust the market. The required amount of capital investment isn't forthcoming from banks or government at the moment anyway.

My view is that we need, along with new builds, other measures to slow growth in the rental market and that has to be direct regulation, whether of banking products and mortgages or rents or both.

[DJKillaQueen]

Well pinkhalf I can quote former council leader Nick Stanton on this to support your point. He said in regards to the redevelopment of Elephant and Castle, on 'The Politics Show' that 'an area so close to the centre of london should not be so poor'. So that tells you a lot about the housing policy and idology of the previous council of Southwark.

[StraferJack]

That looks suspiciously shit stirry to me djkq

He clearly meant an area that close shouldn't be so run down, and should prosper. You surely can't be against that!

Or do we all now have to go and live in the minories as was in Victorian times? How do you think poor people ever get out of poverty? By ring fencing poor areas and saying "change is not good"?

[StraferJack]

As to pink half's point, it's presented as some kind of proof of oppression

In case anyone has missed it, none of us can (presumably) afford to live in central London. We all live quite a bit further out. But most of us don't bleat about it or feel we have been pushed from anywhere. What exactly is the problem?

As for saying people will end up in dagenham? Is that meant to be a bad thing and if so please explain why?

[DJKillaQueen]

Well that's he said in response to Peter Tatchalls accusation that not a high enough percentage of social housing would be part of the development. There are in fact to be no council owned homes within the development. There will though be 2000 HA homes instead (replacing if I remember correctly 1100 former council homes on the site).

[DJKillaQueen]

Pink's point was surely that it is a bad thing to segragate people into ghetto's determined by wealth. It happens anyway of course, but even Bevin in his post war report into proposed council house building cited that communities lacking in social and demographic diversity were a bad thing. And to be fair we've seen plenty of evidence of that since. I think Daganham is alright though :)