Safe as houses

A few days ago, The Guardian published a big report on the impact of the Tories' Right-to_buy policy, 27 years after it was first introduced. You can read the report here.

Although the report focussed on Barking and Westminster, it applies equally to Roehampton, West Hill and Southfields.

Right-to-Buy was the flagship Thatcherite housing policy: it gave council tenants the right to purchase their home at discounted rates. The ethos of the policy was that people who owned their homes took more pride in them and the surrounding area. It also provided those who could afford to buy their homes - and in particular those in council houses, rather than flats - with a nest egg to leave to their children.

But there were several major flaws with right-to-buy and places like Roehampton are now suffering the effects. The first is that the Tories blocked the building of any new council homes for rent to replace those they sold off. This has created huge waiting lists for council housing, overcrowding and homelessness.

The second problem is that a lot of the homes that have been sold off are now owned by absentee landlords, bought during the buy-to-let boom. These are now leased to transient tenants (in Roehampton's case EU migrants and students), who stay put no longer than six months to a year - people who understandably have less commitment to or investment in the area or its community.

The thing Right-to-Buy was supposed to improve: the sense of pride in community, has actually been the thing it has damaged beyond measure. It's one of the reasons why, in response to my recent Roehampton redevelopment survey, around 80% of respondents felt that the area had changed for the worse.

It's also why I'm calling for a change in the law to require councils to replace every home they sell off with at least two for rent - to start repairing the huge loss of affordable homes we in Putney especially have suffered.

The Conservatives still don't understand the problems their policy created: they're committed to worsening it further by extending the right-to-buy to Housing Association tenants, and oppose the building of new council housing.

Take time to read the Guardian article - it sets out the issue in far more detail than I am able to in a post like this.