The solution to the housing crisis isn’t Sajid Javid – it is local councils
Sajid Javid’s claim that the Tory government’s much-delayed Housing White Paper helps renters does not stand up to scrutiny [Image: Alamy].
If you want to up housebuilding, let councils build.
Councils have a particular interest in housing people rather than simply chasing profit, and by stopping councils from building, the government loses more than it saves – in extortionate private temporary accommodation, and housing benefit in the private rented sector (nearly always more expensive than social rent).
Let councils borrow to build social housing.
Let them keep 100% of right-to-buy receipts if you won’t ban the practice altogether, so they can replace homes on a one-for-one basis.
Accept that the housing market is broken because you believed the invisible hand of the market would benefit everyone rather than simply shareholders and landlords.
Let councils get on with solving the housing crisis rather than cutting their budget to ribbons and, despite professing a hatred of red tape, making it increasingly difficult for local authorities to provide the most basic services let alone the complex housing and social care people need.
It turns out it’s a lot easier to write a plan for housing if you care more about solving the crisis than upsetting voters.
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
The trouble is that for to long the idea of selling off the publicly owned houses would save money, and that private landlords would provide a better service, neither has any credence. The other problem is that when a local council refuses planning permission such as mine did when a builder wanted to build on a flood plain they can be overruled by westminster, hence the flooded homes every year since they built the houses took the money and ran.