Profit and the housing shortage
A book published in paperback this year reveals a sorry tale of 60 years of legislation fuelling speculation in land, paving the way for the housing crisis…
A book published in paperback this year reveals a sorry tale of 60 years of legislation fuelling speculation in land, paving the way for the housing crisis…
Areas around Britain’s universities are being blighted as once-stable populations are replaced by student lets and multiple occupation – but communities are fighting back. Workers looks at an example from Liverpool…
The number of households living in overcrowded privately rented properties has doubled in the last decade.
9 December 2019
The housing crisis sweeping Britain shows no sign of abating. Its effects are to be found all over the country, not least in the much-vaunted “Northern powerhouse” of Manchester.
House building across England has fallen to the slowest quarterly rate for three years.
The need for truly affordable housing is universally acknowledged, yet it is not delivered. Brexit, implemented with control over the economy and migration, will allow Britain to plan properly to house its people…
The Addison Act of 1919 had given council housing a national character, funded nationally through the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account (HRA). Borrowing was at a low rate linked to government gilts to offset risk.
28 June 2019
More homeless people die in the areas with the biggest council cuts, a new study suggests.
11 March 2019
Homelessness is growing in Britain, in part due to the shortage of housing. It's worst in London, but is growing fast elsewhere in England – the Midlands, Yorkshire, and the North-West.
28 February 2019
Young workers are finding it harder to set up their own home. This is due to rising house prices, static wages and low levels of employment.
The deliberate under-resourcing of publicly funded housing often raises images of cities, with tower blocks and urban decay.
9 January 2019
The number of homeless people dying on the streets or in temporary accommodation has surged 24 per cent in just five years.
New Zealand is acting against foreign buy-ups of property. The country’s previous government was happy to allow rich foreigners to snap up land and property.
The demand for housing continues to rise, with continuing uncontrolled migration into Britain playing a significant part.
11 January 2018
A nurse would have to save for 53 years just to put down a deposit on homes built on sold-off NHS land, says a new report.
Tenants at Grenfell Tower could not have done more to attract attention to the risk of fire. But they were up against more than penny-pinching profiteers – a whole system had been designed to take control away from them…
Remember Private Finance Initiatives? These 30-year lease-back deals to bring public money into private hands are now notorious as very bad value for money.
27 November 2017
A case going through the High Court illustrates the way regeneration schemes are often merely a curtain raiser for the demolition of council-owned housing.
30 October 2017
Data journalists on the Sunday Times have exposed how housebuilders are making a mint out of Right to Buy.
Establish real housing demand...
After Brexit, we must seize the opportunity to roll back privatisation, the market, and the free movement of labour and capital to rethink Britain’s housing…
4 August 2017
Kensington and Chelsea council raised £4.5 million from the sale of two council houses last year, more than the £3.5 million outlay on the controversial cladding system added to Grenfell Tower.
House the People
CPBML Public Meeting, Thursday 28 September, 7.30pm
Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Housing in Britain is broken. Instead of filling a need, it is an investment from which huge profits can be made by taking advantage of the acute rise in demand. Meanwhile, council housing is left to rot – with deadly consequences. Come and discuss. All welcome.
Manchester is now top of the table for growth in house prices, having increased by 8.8 per cent in the year ending February.
Across large parts of Britain houses and flats are not even being built to be homes – just investments…
Plans are being made to convert offices into flats as small as 16 square metres.
Figures published in August show that over £9 billion a year is now paid in housing benefits to people living in private rented accommodation.
25 March 2016
The government is running down social housing intending to prime the market for foreign takeover. Fearing that Britain may exit the EU, speculators are already leaping into the property scrum.
The new Housing and Planning Bill cultivates and exploits the crisis in housing to strengthen the class power of a tiny minority…
5 October 2015
The phrase “housing crisis” is a daily media prod to the London commuter. Blink and it’s still there. But we’ve been stood immobile and blinking for far too long.