More houses, but how many for renting?
Once again, at least at the outset, the new Brown regime has made a significant and very welcome shift in policy in deciding (what was blindingly and painfully obvious to everyone for the last 10 years) that we desperately need a massive boost to the housebuilding programme, particularly council housing.
Blair would have none of it because ideologically he was wholly opposed to Council housing, even using blackmail to force people out of it – either you transfer to a private landlord or a housing association or an ALMO, or you can rot in your Council house because the Government won’t pay for any repairs or improvements if you stay with the Council. A scorched earth policy otherwise known as blocking the housing fourth option.
The result has been one of the biggest scandals of the Blair era. Homelessness doubled, household on waiting lists rose from 1 million in 1999 to 1.7 million in 2006. Incredibly, this is far worse than under Thatcher.
At the end of the Thatcher period in 1990, the Tories were still building just over 14,000 Council houses a year. By 2000 Council house building had fallen to – just 87 a year.
In 10 years under Thatcher 400,000 Council houses were built. In 10 years under Blair it was down to just 4,000 – 1% of the Tory total.
Gordon Brown’s commitment to raise the overall level of house-building by 40,000 a year by 2016 is therefore very welcome. But there are caveats, and we should look at the small print. 2016 is nine years away, which could mean an increase of only 4-5,000 houses per year through that period – hardly an adequate answer to today’s cry of anguish and despair over housing deprivation.
And exactly how many of the 240,000 houses now planned to be built per year by 2016 will be for Council housing? At least a quarter of the population simply cannot afford home ownership, and up to a quarter therefore of all new house-build should be low-cost rent-affordable housing for them. It’s a little too early to cheer yet.