Tim Almond

If there is one issue in this country that has failed to be addressed properly by any political party, it is the issue of housing.

Throughout the 2nd half of the 20th Century, we have seen huge technological improvements that have put many things into the hands of the not just the moderately well-off, but even down to people who are on low incomes.

Yet we have seen no improvement with housing. People still spend a massive amount of their income on housing, which has an adverse effect on people on low income.

Labour governments advocate more "social housing". But that’s not the problem. It might mean a family can live cheaper than in a private residence, but someone else is footing that difference. The provider might be taking a hit on the interest, or paying part of the rental or upkeep. It adds no more people being housed than if it’s privately owned.

The real problems, as I see them are as follows:-

1. A lack of land. There just isn’t enough land being built on. The more land, the more houses, the greater the supply, the more house prices can fall to make them more affordable for poor people. This is a thorny issue for government, and one that they don’t want to go near, because it means building houses on fields near peoples homes, and people get rather upset about that. But it’s something that we all need to think about, if we believe in raising the wealth of poor people.
2. Housing stock not in use. Both commercial and council housing. I don’t have much of an answer for commercial housing. It seems to me that a man who owns a house has a self interest in having a tenant in there, which council housing managers don’t. Many councils do a great job with housing, but there’s some that don’t. There are properties that are dilapidated that no-one is living in. If the council’s not housing them, maybe they should be forced to sell them so someone else can do something with them.
3. London Bias/use of wealth. Much of our housing problem is around London and the South East. London also gets a huge amount of public money spent on it. Parliament, Whitehall, lots of civil service, but also things like The Olympics, Wembley, The Royal Opera House. All this money is taken from tax payers across the country, so instead of people spending the money themselves, which would get distributed to businesses across the country where employment would be created it creates more employment in London. 1000 men building an Olympic complex need somewhere to live. Not only that, but 1000 men will spend some of that income that creates more employment. People selling them bacon sandwiches at lunchtimes, the newsagent down the road, hotels to put them up. The people running those also need to live somewhere.

Tags: Politics, Ideas //