The first disastrous mistake was to sweep away the old mixed neighbourhoods and replace them with monolithic single-tenure estates of high-rise or deck-access flats.
The second was selling homes at far less than their market value through the right to buy. It was an act of unprecedented state generosity – and inevitably very popular with those who bought. But the cost was not only financial; it was the loss of the most desirable rented homes and a widening divide between owners and tenants.
The third major failure has been in planning and housebuilding policy. We face a massive shortage of housing in the areas of high economic growth. But instead of a reasoned debate about where to build, too often the only voices heard are hysterical outbursts about "concreting over" the South-east. The reality is that there are huge swathes of undeveloped greenfield land in southern England, including some no longer required for agriculture.
The problem is not too much development but by too much bad development – too many expensive executive homes, too much monotonous design, too much low-density sprawl. Too often the wrong homes are being built in the wrong places, for the wrong people. The policy should be to conserve greenfield land for uses which are valuable – for productive economic activity, preserving wildlife, opportunities for recreation and enjoying our heritage – while ensuring new developments are compact and sustainable.
And as well as more homes, we need policies that create socially mixed communities and enable more people to have choice.
People buying a home are able to choose where they live. Those renting from a social landlord mostly have to take what they are offered. The pilot schemes of "choice based lettings" mark an important new approach, but their limitation, especially in areas of shortage, is that only a small number of applicants can get what they want.
Ridgehill invites tenants to go to an estate agent and choose where they want to live
Ridgehill Housing Association, in Hertfordshire, has tried something more radical, a policy it calls "choice to rent". Instead of offering the family at the top of the housing register a vacant property the association already owns, it invites them to go to an estate agent and choose where they'd like to live. The aim is to empower tenants by giving them choice, but the policy could have a wider potential for developing socially mixed communities.
The government proposes to change the rules on capital finance, creating opportunities. Currently councils are free to use only 50% of the receipts from the sale of capital assets, and only 25% of right-to-buy receipts. The rest must be used to repay debt. Under the new rules, local authorities will keep 100% of the receipts from voluntary sales, so that they can plan strategically how to use capital assets to meet policy priorities.
Councils should be thinking creatively about new possibilities. They do not need to be so constrained by the housing stock they own and a mindset that sees the current character of social housing as immutable.
For example, local councils could decide to sell some less-popular vacant flats and use the money to buy houses with gardens. There are many older tenants living in inner urban areas who would love to move out. So why not let them choose a bungalow somewhere close to where their grown-up children live? Often such tenants are under-occupying a family-sized flat, where they have stayed after their children have left home. By moving, they free it up for an overcrowded family.
A policy of restructuring the pattern of tenure cannot work, however, with the present discounts on the right to buy. If councils acquire more desirable properties, these will be bought with discounts, sold on at the market price, and once more lost to the stock of rented homes. Ending discounts is an essential condition for reforming social housing and increasing real choice for tenants.
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
Chris Holmes is former director of Shelter. This text is taken from a speech given on 18 November, at The Crisis for Social Housing conference, which is available from christopherj.holmes@virgin.net
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