The founder of The Big Issue expresses his aversion to liberalism, and his disappointment with the middle class.
Bold plans could see 100,000 extra properties. It would also mean an improved quality of housing for existing tenants.
If we are going to build 300,000 homes and ensure public support, quality really counts. Let’s have new homes that we can be proud of for hundreds of years.
Work has been rewarded. Predictions of rent arrears increasing have been proved false. The number of households penalised has fallen from 660,000 to 381,000.
The rise of social housing provided “biggest collective leap in living standards in British history”. Today, housing associations are the keepers of that legacy.
Plus: why John Bald is wrong to be critical on this site of the Education Select Committee’s report on school exclusions.
There is compelling evidence that there are only two tenures – social housing and home ownership – by which wellbeing of people is supported effectively.
We offer social housing with traditional design and also saving our tenants around £500 a year on fuel bills. The Government should back this approach.
He wants to take people with him in his quest to hit the Government’s target. But will radical policy ideas fit with his emollient political approach?
Since 2010 there have been 90,730 sales through Right to Buy and councils have delivered 94 per cent of the replacements required to meet the one-for-one target.
In my constituency, we have a target of just over 640 homes a year. Our housing waiting list is 3,000.
Maybe it’s because I grew up next to the tower, or that I lost a member of my family in the fire, but next week’s anniversary of the tragedy has an added poignancy for me.
We need more houses, not just to buy, but to rent – truly affordably, as well. This is a social justice issue.
A powerful analysis by Andrew O’Hagan for the London Review of Books also contains serious criticisms of senior Ministers.
Scrap HS2. Integrate social care. Abolish NI. Reverse police cuts. Consider a new Bill of Rights. And much, much more.