“No chance whatsoever” of getting a council house
Yet more reasons why we desperately need more houses in Oxford:
Oxford’s homelessness problem is recognised as the worst outside inner-city London, affecting about 17 in every 1,000 families. [...] There are 8,000 council and 4,000 housing association properties in Oxford, but the authority has a waiting list of more than 5,000, with about 450 properties becoming available each year. City council community housing manager Graham Stratford said: “If you aspire to live in a council house you have no chance whatsoever. Unless circumstances change you will never be housed by this authority.”
There’s only one solution to the problem: building a sizeable number of houses on a bit of scrubland designated as Green Belt to the south-east of the city. It’s clearer than ever that those lobbying against the urban extension are in fact lobbying for the maintenance of current levels of homelessness, temporary housing and overcrowding in our city.
Meanwhile, 23 homes in Oxford fetched more than a million pounds last year. The contribution of housing costs to inequality in the UK has never been more apparent.
Antonia,
Do you not think that a Labour government which has sold off millions of council homes and refuses to allow local authorities to build new council housing might bear *some* of the responsibility for the state that Oxford finds itself in?
It’s very convenient for the Labour Party to propose the classic market solution (’build more homes wherever we can, thus creating the supply to meet the demand’) since identifying the real solution (building council housing) would also identify Labour’s destruction of their historic legacy in this area. I would say that Nye Bevan is spinning in his grave - except that with what is happening to the NHS, he’s already occupied…
Matt
Matt,
In the nicest possible way, I do find your position difficult to understand on these issues. I wonder whether you could be so kind as to clarify some aspects of your position for me. Would you:
(i) be against building state-owned council houses south of Grenoble Road (or elsewhere on some crappy bit of Oxford’s green belt of your specifying)?
(ii) be against building privately-owned houses south of Grenoble Road (or elsewhere on some crappy bit of Oxford’s green belt of your specifying)?
(iii) think that the ownership of the freehold of unbuilt social housing is an issue that bothers those who have been in TA for two years or more and desperately need an expanded housing stock in the city?
(iv) comment on whether the house you yourself grew up in was Council-owned, RSL-owned, or privately-owned, and whether it was built originally by a Council or by a private developer?
Thanks, and hope all is really well,
Tim.
Hotbedding, sofa surfing and house sharing forever is the latest west end production and will soon be coming to a town near you!
Sad fact is the best chance I have of getting on the housing ladder is the parents to get struck by lightening.
Hey Tim,
I’m not sure why my position is all that hard to understand. It is based, fundamentally, on the fact that anything we can do on a purely local level in Oxford will have little impact on housing need in the City. This problem is one created by policy on a national level, and it will only be solved on a national level - by a government that addresses the appalling lack of truly affordable housing in the South-East and London. Suggesting, as Antonia does, that “theres only one solution to this problem” and that that solution is building on Grenoble Road, is fantasy. Of course, I understand why she takes that position, because its handy to be able to ignore the obviously national drivers of Oxfords housing need and to blame it all on ‘local nimbys’.
Ending Right To Buy, providing a fourth option for the DHS and building new council housing would do infinitely more for Oxford’s housing problem than any development in Grenoble Road.
*However* - I am not a Green Belt ‘fundamentalist’ and never have been. If I could be persuaded that a development at Grenoble Road (or wherever) would make an *appreciable* difference to Oxford’s housing problem and provide high-quality, democratically controlled housing to people who need it, then I would be very much willing to countenance it.
Therefore, the answers to your questions are:
(i) Would you be against building state-owned council houses south of Grenoble Road (or elsewhere on some crappy bit of Oxford’s green belt of your specifying)?
No. Nor would I be against truly high-quality, democratically controlled, 100% affordable housing (co-op style for example) that was not in state ownership. While it would still not solve the underlying problems of national housing policy, I think that it might actually produce *some* effect on our homelessness/temporary housing problem, and would therefore be worth doing.
(ii) be against building privately-owned houses south of Grenoble Road (or elsewhere on some crappy bit of Oxford’s green belt of your specifying)?
I am not necessarily against building on the Council owned land south of Grenoble Road - I think that there is an argument to be had that we might successfully negotiate a higher level of affordable housing there due to public ownership of the land…although it would be difficult and the tiny benefit to the overall problem might not outweigh the additional burden on Oxford’s infrastructure and reduction in quality of life that would ensue for people living in the East of the city. I would find it difficult to see how a huge private home development at that site would do anything but create an unbearable burden on that sector of the City, while doing little to relieve the pressure on housing (due to the national factors mentioned above, any improvement would simply be negated by additional influxes of people into Oxford).
(iii) think that the ownership of the freehold of unbuilt social housing is an issue that bothers those who have been in TA for two years or more and desperately need an expanded housing stock in the city?
This is an argument that is used against any proposition to actually address the *underlying cause* of problems rather than desperately address the symptoms. Sod an analysis of why the problem is occuring (sell off of council housing and so on as elucidated above) - lets just build loads of houses, desperately trying to patch the flowing wound while never asking why we are bleeding in the first place. It is exactly the same argument that is used by proponents of stock transfer and against the ‘fourth option’ (’but people need home improvement now, we can’t hold out for funding for public housing) and is as bankrupt there as it is here.
(iv) comment on whether the house you yourself grew up in was Council-owned, RSL-owned, or privately-owned, and whether it was built originally by a Council or by a private developer?
I don’t see why this is relevant - unless you are trying to imply that everyone who opposes building in the Green Belt is privileged, which is demonstrably false. For what it is worth, I grew up in a private home. My dad, however, grew up in care in North Leigh, and my mum grew up in a council flat in Crawley.
It is worth stating that the above answers are not Green Party policy. They are my own views. I’d also apologise if they are a bit polemical. Its very hard to avoid that style when the original post states so flatly that those of us who have a different analysis of the situation are ‘lobbying for homelessness’. Unfortunately, it is that kind of language that stops us ever having a rational, reasoned debate about these issues.
P.S. Tim, thanks for the reasonable tone of your questions, and apologies if my response is somewhat of a rant. I would genuinely welcome an opportunity to discuss these issues *sensibly* with people like you, Antonia, Dan Paskins etc - possibly away from the point scoring of the Internet. It might be interesting.
Matt
Matt,
I think the issues you raise are something of a smokescreen here. While stopping selling off council houses may help prevent additional housing shortages in the future, it won’t house anyone who is currently homeless.
Furthermore, I can’t see how providing direct investment in council housing & allowing local authorities to build council housing would do anything other than accelerate a development south of Grenoble Road.
How can you be against a development off Grenoble Road and yet claim the reason you’re against it is you support policies which would accelerate it? If you claim it’s because 100% of housing built south of Grenoble Road will not be council housing, you have to answer charges of playing politics with people’s lives by holding out for the impossible while opposing policies which would give people a roof over their heads.
Furthermore, you criticise Antonia for calling opposition nimbyistic (she didn’t, in this post at least), but go on to say more housing is undesirable because there will just be “additional influxes” into Oxford. This seems like nimbyism to me. It also seems like you’re claiming that Oxford has an intrinsic level of homelessness - care to expand on this?
I remember when canvassing lefties in Oxford this was the number one issue I used to seperate Labour from the Greens and explain why protest voting was gesture politics with dangerous consequences - it doesn’t seem like much has changed to me.
Other Tim
If building more houses is so important, why did Labout councillors side with the Lib Dems and vote to extend the Westgate centre? At current recommended housing densities, the extension to Westgate could have accommodated 500 more flats and houses. Which is more important homes or shops?
And why did Labour side with the LibDems and Tories to turn the old prison into another luxury hotel when the alternative St. John’s scheme would have created student accomodation instead? This would have done much to relieve housing pressure in the City Centre.
Nice as it is (if you like that sort of thing) the old prison building (which is County-owned) could have been put to better use and still created a high quality public space on the rest of the site.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for getting back. A couple of concerns:
“Ending Right To Buy, providing a fourth option for the DHS and building new council housing would do infinitely more for Oxford’s housing problem than any development in Grenoble Road.”
I personally agree with you on this issue, as does the Labour Party’s Annual Conference, and agree that all of those would be desirable, and in the long run (>10 years) would do a lot for people in need of accommodation in Oxford. But in the short term, as far as I can see (short term - 0- 5 years), a development south of Grenoble Road will do infinitely more for Oxford’s housing problem than any proposed legislative change. Surely you’d agree with that?
“I am not necessarily against building on the Council owned land south of Grenoble Road - I think that there is an argument to be had that we might successfully negotiate a higher level of affordable housing there due to public ownership of the land.”
I take your point, but an increase in overall supply would surely be a good thing?
“This is an argument that is used against any proposition to actually address the *underlying cause* of problems rather than desperately address the symptoms. Sod an analysis of why the problem is occuring (sell off of council housing and so on as elucidated above) - lets just build loads of houses, desperately trying to patch the flowing wound while never asking why we are bleeding in the first place.”
Again, I take your point, but I think you are falling into precisely the opposite trap to the one you outline - the trap that says “Sod people in the here and now, lets get the analysis right”. I agree with your analysis, but us both being correct (or thinking ourselves to be) will not lift a single individual out of crap housing. To use your own metaphor, you do need to apply a tourniquet to an injured patient even as you work out why it is that she is bleeding to death.
“I don’t see why this is relevant - unless you are trying to imply that everyone who opposes building in the Green Belt is privileged, which is demonstrably false. For what it is worth, I grew up in a private home.”
So did I. My point is merely that it ill behoves people like you and me to insist that the only way new housing can be built to satisfy current (and, let’s be clear about this, future) demand is through the state when we live in a predominantly capitalist economy. I don’t like that we live in a predominantly capitalist economy, but there it is.
I’m sorry you can’t swing the Greens round to a more pragmatic view of the green belt, but hey.
Thanks again,
Tim.
Chris -
I’m not an Oxford Labour councillor, but don’t you think there’s an important difference between building homes on sites that are indeed foog for building homes but are also in an excellent position to generate jobs for working people (like the Westgate Centre) and building homes on sites that are in a fairly silly place to try and generate jobs for working people but a perfectly good one for homes (like a disused sewage works south of Greater Leys)?
Thanks,
Tim
Both homes and shops are important - Oxford needs more homes for people who are currently on the waiting list, and more shops so people don’t end up driving to Reading or Swindon to do their shopping, and so that there are enough jobs for people who haven’t got a degree.
One thought for those worried about the sustainability of Oxford’s growth as a city. I see little reason why NGOs (apart from Oxfam, for historical reasons) would choose to be based in Oxford (or London) - it is expensive to rent office space and it is expensive for workers to rent (let along buy). It also helps to drive up house prices and fuels the growth of the service sector. It would be much more sustainable for NGOs such as, say, those working on environmental issues, to relocate to areas of the country where the cost of office space and of living is much lower. In Oxford, from a sustainability point of view, there should be more jobs available working in shops and fewer working in the voluntary sector.
This is interesting.
Working in housing in central london but originally from Oxford, i had no idea there is such a large waiting list. I think Camden comes in at over 3,000 with Westminster somewhere over 4,000.
I don’t know about some of you who are councillors or advice workers like me but seeing letters from a local authority saying ‘Mr x is 200th on the list, we only let 5 properties to Mr X’s band/group/section whatever per year it will therefore be some time before he gets rehoused,’ is simply depressing. Furthermore, saying things like you have no chance whatsoever of getting a council house is utterly pointless. Given that local authorities have and will continue to have duty to rehouse the vulnerable and unintenionally homeless, does anyone really think that Mr Stratford’s comments will make any difference? No thought not.
It is absolutely clear to me that maintaining the situation as it stands in areas of high housing demand benefits only one party (or type of party) - namely the BNP and its ilk. As politicians or people with an interest in politics the only response to this must be to look at supply.
I also suggest that the finger pointing has to stop. Right to buy has been running since the 80s. I don’t know if any of you noticed but it was wildly popular with the electorate and it still is (many local labour councillors in RTB homes round my way feel terribly guilty about their good fortune). You can tighten up the discount or look into bringing back the portable discount but, for the time being, we just have to work around it.
The real tragedy of right to buy in the context of supply is that often taxpayers are shelling out an unbelievable amount of money via housing benefits to keep people in temporary accommodation that the government used to own and rent out for a third or quarter of the price. I use the word keep advisedly because with the benefits taper as it is, the relatively high rents are a massive disincentive to work.
Having said that, I have no idea what rents are like in Oxford but somewhere around 15 to 18k for a family-sized TA unit can’t be far wrong. If someone is on the housing list for 6 years that’s a maximum of £108,000 down the swanney. Why don’t we stop shelling money out on this (often crappy) housing (which isn’t really temporary anyway) and buy it back?
Even allowing for a quick injection to supply that this may provide, or indeed any other short term measure, you can not duck the question of supply. Someone somewhere is going to have to build some new houses. Tim is correct that we need to be pragmatic in this regard. Increasingly, I find myself believing that arguing otherwise is pure sophistry that will lead to disaster.
But in terms of attracting the kind of applicants NGOs want, doesn’t it make sense for them to be based in London (and possibly Oxford too). Of course there are massive problems with this, but I understand the rationale.
That’ll teach me to have council meetings til 9pm for the last two nights! Hello everyone.
Matt, I partly agree with you - I shouldn’t have said that the only solution to Oxford’s housing crisis was building on the greenbelt. It’s the only immediate solution, but in the long term there needs to be a rethink of housing policy.
You’re not wrong about the need to invest to meet the decent homes standard without forcing councils to transfer to an ALMO or RSL. It is Labour conference policy three or four times over. I would make sure that councils could reinvest money from RTB in more housing (I do think there is something to be said for creating mixed communities instead of monolithic estates with only one type of tenure, so whilst I would restrict it further, I’m not sure I’d end it entirely). I would like it to be possible for councils to build new council housing and have some of the freedoms available to RSLs. I also think that, given that housing costs are such a huge contributer to inequality, we should increase inheritance tax take on more expensive homes; think about how a portion of the massive increases in house prices could be realised and reinvested in housing provision; tax second homes punitively; increase regulation of private landlords and increase the rights of tenants, including perhaps through some type of right to buy for private tenants. I’m sure I think there are more actions that need to be taken to improve the housing situation in the UK, but that’ll do for the moment.
I’m not sure, however, that you’ve fully appreciated the situation that huge council-house-owning councils found themselves in when faced with a huge decent homes challenge, though - the argument may be bankrupt and the dilemma not one of our choosing, but while rejecting all the available funded options was just about possible for OCC, but it really wasn’t for many councils. I’m not saying it was right that they should be faced with that choice, I’m saying I understand the decision that their councillors had to make.
Oh, and I don’t accuse you of “lobbying for homelessness”, Matt - as you point out, your position is nuanced, and sitting with you through EB and full council I recognise that you do care about social justice in a way that many of those opposed to any development on the green belt, under any circumstances, some of whom are in your party, just do not.
Chris - jobs are also important, both creating new ones and guaranteeing the ones that currently exist through maintaining Oxford’s position as a shopping destination for the surrounding area. The same argument applies to your point, Craig, with the additional consideration of supporting tourism.
Antonia
Dan - glad to see your project to make us all move north continues unabated. It’s chicken and egg, unfortunately; only once three or four charities of the size of Oxfam or Cancer Research UK relocate to one city does it become possible for them to recruit high-quality staff and for staff to be sure that their geographic location won’t hold back their career.
Antonia
I basically agree with you but you miss out the merits of land value taxation (LVT). Unlike inheritance tax, LVT cannot be avoided, and isn’t dependent on someone dying.
It would be good for house prices, urban centres and raise revenue making the tax system fairer. It is also environmentally sound which is why the Green Party quite likes it. For more see
http://www.labourland.org
Hello All,
You might like to look at this:
http://www.adamsmith.org/index.php/main/individual/land/
I think it is worth the read, although long.
I am of the opinion that the way to get affordable homes is to increase supply. Lets face it there isn’t going to be a massive state building program so what should be done? Where should the houses be built? Let the market decide.
It is quite clear if people are allowed to build houses then the price will fall. This of course is not popular with home owners.
Stuff them in favour of all the poor people without homes, that’s what I say.
Jack
Dear Antonia
Best of luck trying to persuade your fellow councillors to build new properties. Most don’t have your pragmatic view and want to cling on to the past for dear life. That usually means no more new builds.
I do occasionally think moving to a country with more land would be easier.
Who owns the land in the green belt?
My understanding is that a fair proportion is owned by speculators gambling that the land will eventually be granted planning permission.
I think that were the council to build new homes in the greenbelt, the land should be subject to compulsory purchase at a value appropriate for a field, then planning permission should be granted, and then houses should be built. I do not think Oxford taxes should go into buying out property speculators.
What matters is not so much the supply of council housing as the supply of housing. House prices are held artificially high by the restriction in supply caused by planning regulations. Grant permission for the building of more houses, and the prices will come down (or just stop rising, which is nearly as good). If more people can afford to buy houses, that reduces the pressure on private (and to an extent Council) rental properties. Make private rents cheaper, and there’s less demand for council houses.
You can fix the council house shortage without building a single new council house, by allowing more houses to be built and so extending home ownership further down the income scale.