February 2, 2009
Council House Building Hits The Buffers In 2008
Council house building hit the buffers.
Until recently council houses were built at a rate of 100,000 a year in most years until 1980. The right to buy introduced theHousing Act 1980 when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, allowed councils tenants to buy their own properties , this was taken up by many tenants in better quality council houses . The lack of investment in council house construction caused a dramatic drop in council houses becoming available.
Since the early 80s councils have had a very limited supply for newbuild homes with most government cash going to housing associations.In 1989 the Local Government and Housing Act required councils to set aside 75% of proceeds of housing sales and 50% from Housing land sales to the Treasury for the Department for Communities and Local Government. Most rental income also had to be redistributed. No wonder not many councils wanted to build any more??
Current council house stock is extremely limited and there are approximately 4.5 million people in England on the waiting list. Although there are 4 million council and housing association homes in the UK only about 170,000 people become vacant each year .Last year only 375 new council houses were built throughout the UK.
The government has recently introduced targets to build 70,000 social homes a year by 2010 of which 45,000 will be for rent and 30,000 for shared equity schemes.
No wonder private landlords investing in property are taking up the slack.
