Door is slammed on social housing
In the Government’s attempt to attract the youth vote, Philip Hammond has promised to build 300,000 new homes. But this proves just how out of touch the Tories are because after seven years of prolonged austerity the vast majority of young people just cannot afford the deposit for a new-build property.
The only answer to unaffordability and homelessness is a root and branch reform of housing policy and that means doing what Labour did under Harold Wilson’s premiership in the 60s and 70s – building hundreds of thousands of council houses and flats, and bringing in rent controls in the private sector.
Social or council housing was not given a mention in the Budget, so the only hope is a change of government – and that can’t come too soon.
John Stockham, Folkestone, Kent
# The Government’s housing policies are a total failure. Help to buy and the reduction in stamp duty can only cause house prices to rise and will do nothing to address the shortage of affordable homes. Sensible policies to get housing associations and local councils to fund and build new social housing seem to have been ignored. We should put VAT on second homes and buy-to-let properties. Once again, the Government is showing its dogmatic attachment to a private sector that’s failed to solve the housing shortage for decades.
Brett Grainger Rugeley, Staffs
# Philip Hammond’s promise to build 300,000 new homes is a vote-seeking ploy, especially as there was no mention of building more social housing.
In my area, council tenants’ money is being used to renovate council-run properties which have become empty, then putting them out for lease through private agencies with a sky-high money bond required for occupancy. This immediately puts a financial penalty burden on the very families the Government is promising to help. Neil Atherton St Helens, Merseyside # The 300,000 new houses the Tories have promised to build will not be homes for the ordinary people. They should be replacing every council house which has been sold off at a substantial loss to the communities, but Tories don’t build council houses.
Malcolm Hodgson Cramlington, Northumberland
# It’s not the scrapping of stamp duty for some first-time buyers that will solve the housing crisis, it is putting billions of pounds into building social housing. If anything should be banned, it is developers being able to buy the social housing quota on new developments that ends up in the council contingency fund.
S T Vaughan, Birmingham
# It is about time that the right to buy council houses was knocked on the head. People in need of these houses cannot get them because the councils keep selling them. The authorities should be made to replace whatever stock they sell. Sarah Smith, Blyth Northumberland