37 Affordable Homes Lie Empty at Parkway, they may offload the 'good ones' first! Options

[On the edge]

I suspect we are really in violent agreement. OK, I should respect your personal opinion of the architecture; which is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. I don't agree that we have anything to worry about as the town fills up. However, we would have no issue at all if we had even a decent volume of affordable homes. It is simply daft to hold constructed flats back which could otherwise be occupied, of course, the agents might be trying to throttle back the for sale ones for their own reasons, but keeping the 'social' ones back makes no sense. I don't subscribe to the view that social tenants are in anyway undesirable. The idea should be that no one knows the difference.

It's a big subject and it may seem daft expecting the council to do something about wages for key workers. Nonetheless, that's part of the issue and they are big key worker employers. Take say Richmond, or islington, beloved of the rich. Their kids have to go to school. The school needs teachers and caretakers etc. etc. ideally they need to live nearby. Yet we pay (particularly the support staff) peanuts! What chance do they have?

[Andy Capp]

Yes, it is a paradox.

[DJE]

I think it is quite clear what my problem is; I think the title of the thread makes that obvious. Where people come from doesn't bother me, but please understand that as people move in to Newbury, it is bound to make house prices rise, and unless you are selling to move somewhere cheaper, that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Swings and roundabouts. People move into Newbury; but on the other hand, some homes got built in Newbury.

The net total of homes in the country increased accordingly. Which is a good thing, and in theory reduces the pressure on house prices, which is also a good thing.

I have not seen the Park Way homes close up, but if they are high quality, I am all for it. Again, market forces will make all such homes incrementally more affordable, as, by their construction, they have been added to the total housing stock.

I would like to see everyone able to live in good quality housing,

I do find the phrase 'affordable housing' idiotic though.

[Simon Kirby]

I do find the phrase 'affordable housing' idiotic though.

Quite. As I think you've said before, the whole system of state meddling has artificially increased house prices to the point where ordinary people, and especially ordinary young people, can't afford to live anywhere, and yet more meddling isn't the answer. The state needs to quit all this this "affordable" nonsense, relax planning control to give presumed consent for any quality sustainable development, and if businesses in expensive districts can't recruit key-workers (whatever they are) at the salary they're offering then they need to offer a higher salary.

[Ron]

What is or who are 'ordinary people'?

[Simon Kirby]

What is or who are 'ordinary people'?

I'm thinking that they're neither privileged offspring of wealthy parents, nor feckless no-hopers, they're just ordinary, average, typical working people.

[Ron]

I'm thinking that they're neither privileged offspring of wealthy parents, nor feckless no-hopers, they're just ordinary, average, typical working people.

There must be h**l of a lot of offspring of wealthy parents or feckless no hopers in Newbury by the number of houses being sold!!

[Andy Capp]

I do find the phrase 'affordable housing' idiotic though.

It is just a label for average wage earner affording an average priced home.

Quite. As I think you've said before, the whole system of state meddling has artificially increased house prices to the point where ordinary people, and especially ordinary young people, can't afford to live anywhere, and yet more meddling isn't the answer. The state needs to quit all this this "affordable" nonsense, relax planning control to give presumed consent for any quality sustainable development, and if businesses in expensive districts can't recruit key-workers (whatever they are) at the salary they're offering then they need to offer a higher salary.

I'm sorry Simon, but that won't and doesn't happen, but this is why we see more foreign workers filling those slots; not higher wages, which fuels wage inflation. The best paid key worker wages cannot afford an average priced home (in West Berkshire). And planning guidelines were relaxed for Parkway, but we still have 37 lower value home being held back. It's ridiculous.

Increasing the housing stock that the majority cannot afford, for people to move into from out of town will do nothing to help people already here renting or living at home seeking their first home.

[Simon Kirby]

There must be h**l of a lot of offspring of wealthy parents or feckless no hopers in Newbury by the number of houses being sold!!

If you've got a sensible point to make, why not just make it in a sensible way. Those already on the housing ladder may well be buying and selling because for them the differential cost is not that great if they're not trading up, but ordinary young people starting out have a difficult time finding decent affordable starter housing or moving up to family housing.

[Simon Kirby]

It is just a label for average wage earner affording an average priced home.


I'm sorry Simon, but that won't and doesn't happen, but this is why we see more foreign workers filling those slots; not higher wages, which fuels wage inflation. The best paid key worker wages cannot afford an average priced home (in West Berkshire). And planning guidelines were relaxed for Parkway, but we still have 37 lower value home being held back. It's ridiculous.

Increasing the housing stock that the majority cannot afford, for people to move into from out of town will do nothing to help people already here renting or living at home seeking their first home.

I'm talking about a radical repeal of planning control so that housing associations can build sustainable housing on any greenfield site, and I think I'd give them the power to compulsory purchase too. That would end speculation on development land, and it would allow not-for-profit housing associations to supply the market with the quality housing that it needs and allow the free market to set the price.

I fundamentally disagree with your take on the economics of wage inflation. In a free market if the job doesn't pay enough to attract applicants then the job just isn't paying enough, and if the employer can't afford to pay any more then the job doesn't need doing. You get wage inflation if there is a shortage of applicants, but there is no shortage of people willing to do these "key" jobs, the jobs just don't pay enough to live on. So if those jobs really are "key", then the employer needs to pay a living wage. Of course the cost of paying "key" workers a living wage will be passed on to service users and consumers in the region and if they can afford the cost of living there then fine, but if they can't afford it then they can move somewhere cheaper to live, and this will of course reduce the need for those "key" workers and the cost of employing them can then fall - that's how a free market works. What the state does is tax everyone to subsidise artificial funny-money "affordable" housing schemes, which actually maintains the cost of housing artificially high - pure Adam Smith.

[Andy Capp]

Simon, have you not noticed the big increase in foreign works in the lower skilled sector - carriers, hospitals, etc? It was wage inflation that sponsored governments to open the boarders.

[DJE]

Simon, have you not noticed the big increase in foreign works in the lower skilled sector - carriers, hospitals, etc? It was wage inflation that sponsored governments to open the boarders.

Using immigration to drive down wages. At the same time, putting pressure on housing, driving house prices up further.

All very nice for landowners, MPs with taxpayer-funded second homes, etc.

As is the money-laundering merry-go-round for foreign criminals and despots that is the London property market.

And now, in a desperate move to prop up the deflating property bubble, the Government is panicing and bringing forward the Help to Sell Buy scheme, which is designed to put upwards pressure on house prices, making them... more difficult to buy.

At the same time the HTB scheme means that mortgage loans will be underwritten by the taxpayer, encouraging banks to be reckless with lending again. Another moral hazard, with the taxpayer on the hook, the eventual new bailout of banks being built into HTB.

The banks and politicians have learned nothing, other than how to reflate property bubbles and fleece the taxpayer.

[On the edge]

Simon, have you not noticed the big increase in foreign works in the lower skilled sector - carriers, hospitals, etc? It was wage inflation that sponsored governments to open the boarders.

My personal take on this is that you are both right. Simon is using the pure economic view. AndyC has countered with what's happened in reality. The economic rule on wages works inside a boarder, the trouble is our boarder is now European. That actually means dedicated Europeans are expecting economies to 'level' across Europe, which will bring things back to the status quo inside the European boarder. As we can see today its going to take a very very very long time!! So, I suppose that does mean the only way out would be intervention in the housing market and particularly the creation and set up of more and better not for profit housing associations. Ideally, if we could also start moving away from the property ownership fetish; I think we all need a significant stake in our own home and it's immediate environs, but that doesn't necessarily mean personally owning it

[Exhausted]

I'm talking about a radical repeal of planning control so that housing associations can build sustainable housing on any greenfield site, and I think I'd give them the power to compulsory purchase too. That would end speculation on development land, and it would allow not-for-profit housing associations to supply the market with the quality housing that it needs and allow the free market to set the price.

That was the way it was and in Newbury we had Shaw Estate and Turnpike estate built by the council for rental to persons on the housing list. They were designed as council houses and had a reasonable build standard and by today's standards a nice long garden. There was never at the time any thought that they would become and would end up being traded as owned homes. The sell off to the tenants at knock down prices is why the councils now need housing stock and the only way they can get it is to force developers to build them.
I'm not sure what the deal is in Parkway but I understood that they would be part share rather than being allocated to single parent Tracy and her child Kylie. Maybe they had wind of the 95% mortgages that we have been promised by the main man to counter the other guys price freeze promise on utilities.

[On the edge]

And there you have it! These big council estates seemed to be a great idea BUT they essentially divided society. The deserving poor all lived together in one place. Over the years they became stigmatised - just as you've done in your post about the type of tenants in social housing. I was brought up in a council house on a vast estate in Surrey, believe me, the stigma followed you everywhere.