Friday, Jan 30, 2009
Bit late now
Times: Gordon Brown orders thousands of new council houses
The biggest council house building programme for decades was ordered by Gordon Brown yesterday as he urged town halls to rescue the construction industry and help to kick-start the economy. Rules should be relaxed to allow councils to borrow more money and to keep the proceeds from rents and sales, the Prime Minister said.
Last year only 375 council homes were built.
Posted by little professor @ 01:59 AM (870 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
- If you do not have an admin password leave the password field blank.
- If you would like to request a password allowing you to add comments and blog news articles without needing each one approved manually, send an e-mail to the webmaster.
- Your email address is required so we can verify that the comment is genuine. It will not be posted anywhere on the site, will be stored confidentially by us and never given out to any third party.
- Please note that any viewpoints published here as comments are user's views and not the views of HousePriceCrash.co.uk.
- Please adhere to the Guidelines
1. shining wit said...
So Gordon the clown now wants to build social housing! What a cunning stunt!
Surely he has had nearly 12 years to do this? Surely if he had done this in their first term it might've taken the wind out of the biggest property asset bubble in british history? Prevented millions from lying (sorry self certifying) their way into mortgages and homes they couldn't afford? And stopped thousand and thousands of repossesions and bankruptcies!
Door - stable - horse - shut !!!
Well if it happens, assuming they don't have to create another raft of reports (like their Digital Britain non-starter created by Lord Carter - I ask you who in their right mind thinks "up to 2Mb" is high speed broadband? And exactly how many ministers does this sham of a government need that have never seen a ballet box?), fight all the communities that don't want more social housing on their doorsteps, and councils can actually find somewhere to borrow enough money from to do this, it will initially undermine any recovery in the housing market, and then, when all the ner' do wells have lived in them for 3-5 years, allow them to buy into the property dream, thus kick starting another boom and removing the social housing from the books.Brillaint and cunning plan baldrick!
This ridiculous non-elected, non entity of a Prime Minister, is simply waffling, spluttering and clunking his way into being the absolute laughing stock of the western world. Where has this sack 'o spuds been for the last 11 years?
Watch PMs questions next time the bafoon makes an appearance, listen to the clunking fist on the lecturn. He, like almost all politicians in that pompous excuse for a democratic chamber, has absoluteley no idea what he's doing and what he has done.
We're dooomed, I tell yee, dooomed.
2. shining wit said...
Oh, and the headline "Broadband in every home by 2012 " yesterday - What about "People in every home by 2009"?
With an estimated 800,000 empty properties out there, surely they could be of use to the very people that council houses are intended for? After all, we now own the very banks that are repossesing properties at a faster rate than we could ever build them in and holding half the deeds to these empty properties?
Nationalise empty properties and second homes, that would fill the gap in social housing. If you want to play at being a socialist Gordy, have the nads to do the job properly! Go get at all those off-shore tax havens and confiscate all the money that individuals have over £30 million, as Japanese Uncle suggests!
3. landofconfusion said...
"Nationalise empty properties and second homes, that would fill the gap in social housing."
Unfortunately that sounds like a good idea so it isn't going to happen. Also, it doesn't create jobs/support the construction industry/offer sufficient back-handers and who knows might even result in MP's friends losing their now-vacant BTL properties.
Other than that it's a great idea which only needs a change in the law to prevent the eventual loss to the BTL brigade by people exercising their "right to buy" (at a stonking great discount) and then selling and renting back.
4. quiet guy said...
"banks that are repossesing properties at a faster rate than we could ever build them in and holding half the deeds to these empty properties? Nationalise empty properties and second homes, that would fill the gap in social housing."
Hmm. That would also reduce the supply of houses for sale on the market and hence increase upwards pressure on prices. Just before the next election.
Be careful what you wush for witty.
5. Bubbleburster said...
It's about time they started building more council houses and why not a two tier social housing system? not "affordable" shoe box rubbish in town centers with no parking spaces or prefab ghetto's full of chavs but good quality family homes with lifetime lets at affordable rents for a better class of hard working tenants who don't have a need to store washing machines in the front garden but people who realise the "dream" of home ownership is just a conspiracy to keep you skint for most of your working life only to have it stolen from you in old age to pay for nursing home fees while the renters of the world get it for free.
6. alan said...
Another day, another government statement. In 1997 they made a statement about stopping mixed sex wards. When my mum had an accident 6 months ago she was put on a mixed sex ward.
The point I'm making is that in all these statements, some get actioned, some simply forgotten. Politicians are politicians, the people knocking Gordo today for over promising and under delivery will be knocking his successor in a few years time.
House prices will continue to fall while there is a lack of buying committment, caused by major job uncertainty in the UK. That's the biggest influencer IMHO.
7. stillthinking said...
Let's make any alarming requests for confiscation of private property....probably coming soon enough anyway. I doubt very much that anybody who had large holdings in sterling still keeps them in the UK.
8. hubbers said...
Soon everyone will be on the dole and in a Gordon Clown house and then Labour will be assured of their voter base for all time.
When we go to the football we can all sing "We all live in a Gordon Clown house"
Now where did I put my girlfriend. You get more money and a Gordon Clown house if you have a baby.
9. mark wadsworth said...
I'm all in favour of affordable housing. That's fixed cheaply and simply by allowing prices to fall to half 2007 levels (or wherever they bottom out). We can keep prices low and stable by, among other things Land Value Tax.
As to empty properties, again, that's a job for Land-Value-Tax-Man. Nationalising stuff (i.e. overpaying to prop up prices) is a hiding to nothing.
What can possibly go wrong?