When Policy Exchange sent me details of their proposal to sell the most expensive social housing and use the proceeds to buy cheaper homes, I thought it was actually government policy already; it seems to make perfect sense for those who own social housing to trade out and up and improve their stock so that they can increase the numbers who they rent to. Fortunately Grant Shapps is keen on the idea, pronouncing it “blindingly obvious”.
I have never been terribly keen on the idea that the state should provide your housing for ever; I think people should be encouraged to move up and on. It’s good for people to aspire and to see the fruits of their labour. It’s good that we as a society help those who need it but it is limiting – to individuals and to society – that we encourage people to stay in state housing for ever.
The concept that Policy Exchange talks about – of providers selling their most expensive stock and reinvesting the proceeds in more but less expensive homes – seems entirely with the grain of many of the other reforms which the government is undertaking. It is fair – why should those who don’t pay for their own housing live in better homes than those who pay for them? It is sensible – two (or more) for the current price of one? It is sustainable – because the policy also proposes a minimum standard for the new homes, so the overall stock will improve in quality over time.
There are various mutterings about social cleansing and divided communities this morning, which is total nonsense. We already have enormous variation between and within areas which this policy does basically nothing to change. Boroughs or housing associations would build/buy these new homes within their existing areas – so they would house two (or more) families for the current one that they would sell off. It would encourage innovation by reinvesting the proceeds in that local area.
Perhaps the most interesting thing highlighted by the policy and the government’s reaction to it is that it does not require any legislation and that housing providers can already do this (as I had thought). But very few of them do. Why is that? Is it because we have all become so conditioned to the state doing things that we fail to think of more imaginative ways to succeed?
An additional snippet of information has come from the Adam Smith Institute’s poll – I’ll probably come back to it more generally but YouGov found that 38 per cent of people agree that ‘the government has a duty to provide secure housing for people like me’ while only 29 per cent disagree.
New blogpost: Why isn’t @Policy_Exchange ‘s “blindingly obvious” housing idea policy yet? http://t.co/35sTdTnA #fb
RT @PlatformTen: New blogpost: Why isn’t @Policy_Exchange ‘s “blindingly obvious” housing idea policy yet? http://t.co/35sTdTnA #fb
That you think this is ‘blindingly obvious’ shows the lack of thought and research that has gone into this.
How do you propose that a Housing Association, if it sells a property in Kensington, replaces that property in ‘[the] existing area”. And how would this be cost neutral given the cost of land in the area? Nevermind the dysfunctional planning rules.
The only way they could build in volume is to build away from where most of their properties currently are. Police Exchange, to their credit, acknowledge this. Hence the accusation of ‘social cleansing’. If the policy suggested were implemented then eventually all social renters would be moved out of certain areas so this can’t be unthinkingly dismissed as ‘nonsense’ unless you think social cohesion is not important.
Would you mandate private charities to sell off properties they own if this runs contrary to their own asset strategy? Policy Exchange may like the idea of raising a quick buck but well-run organisations think long-term.
The number of very expensive council/HA properties is tiny. But the scope of this report would include places like Lewsiham which are hardly wealthy areas.
Fundamentally, this report blames the victims in that it is not the fault of social tenants that the dysfunctional London housing market means that pretty much any family sized home in the capital is worth a huge sum of money.
Of course it’s not a surprise Shapps has leapt on another bandwagon. Someone needs to let him know he’s actually the minister now and he has the power to do things. Instead of endorsing all these policies how about he actually implements a few? His lack of action is being noticed.
Oh and of you’re going to throw in buzzwords like ‘innovation’ please use them in a context where they actually mean something. That sentence at the end of the fourth paragraphs is vacuous.
New blogpost: Why isn’t ‘blindingly obvious’ policy yet? http://t.co/WpaHbH2S
Last night’s blogpost: Why isn’t @Policy_Exchange ‘s “blindingly obvious” housing idea policy yet? http://t.co/WpaHbH2S
Why isn’t Policy Exchange’s ‘blindingly obvious’ housing idea policy yet? asks Fiona Melville http://t.co/uhupimIl
RT @MustBeRead: Why isn’t Policy Exchange’s ‘blindingly obvious’ housing idea policy yet? asks Fiona Melville http://t.co/uhupimIl
Hello Henry
I think it’s blindingly obvious that anyone managing property of this sort ought to seek to maximise the number of people they can help. I think this is one sensible way to do that. (The quote is from Grant Shapps though).
Of course associations etc can build elsewhere in their area. The cost of land is of course factored into the SALE price of the original property… I do agree re planning rules – they need to be updated.
You would build in different bits of your area, yes, but I do think the point of this is that the general area would gain more homes (my understanding is that the cheaper bits of an area would have more social housing built – but is that such a bad thing?) Social cohesion is important but as I say in my piece, there are HUGE gulfs already – basically in some areas only the exceptionally wealthy and the relatively very poor can afford to live. I don’t think we should reject an idea the potential to improve the overall quality and amount of social housing out of hand.
I wouldn’t mandate anyone. I’d suggest it as an option that might work for a particular area.
‘Very expensive’ is a relative term – Policy Exchange’s own figures show that the proportion varies from 30+% to around 14% depending on the area.
It’s not about victims; it’s about saying this is a problem and here is a potential solution. Instead of endlessly hand-wringing and doing nothing, here’s an idea.
Yes he does have the power to do things, but more importantly, so do other actors than just the government. Which goes again to my point about innovation – there are ideas around, some of which work for some people, so if you take advantage of a policy/idea, you can make it work for you. That is the point of localism/big society etc – you make choices which take into account your own circumstances and which mean that you make things work for you. But those choices have to be available in the first place, rather than everyone sitting waiting for the state to make them for you which as we know often doesn’t work.
Gordon Hector (@GordoH) has also written on these proposals http://bit.ly/OLk944