As the three Labour councillors for Whitefoot Ward in the London borough of Lewisham, we have a very good working relationship with our local social housing provider, Phoenix Community Housing, who took over the running of the housing stock from Lewisham council in 2007, in the wards of Whitefoot, Downham and Bellingham. They are London’s only community gateway partnership, where the majority of the board is elected by its tenants. The satisfaction rate among social housing tenants is 90 per cent, achieving decent home status for all its properties last year. Finally it was judged among their peers as the third best housing provider in the country.
Despite this, the majority of their tenants have the right to buy, 3,935 out of a total of 5,734, who were former Lewisham council tenants. The current Right to Buy scheme gives secure tenants the legal right to buy, at a large discount, the home they are living in. The scheme has been re-invigorated several times in the past three years. Currently, any properties being sold in the first 10 years, following the right to buy purchase, must be offered back to the association under the rights of first refusal. Where possible, every effort is made to re-purchase the property, bringing it back into their stock. However the time spent on RTB has increased for staff from 1.25 hours per week to 25 per week.
Of most concern though, is the current Conservative proposal to extend this to all housing association tenants, which would likely affect Phoenix’s remaining 1,799 tenants. Those additional tenants affected would be more likely to be mortgage friendly than under the current Right to Buy tenants. It is still unclear what discount would be offered, but it is currently 70 per cent up to a maximum of £103,900. And there is no clarity as to whether there will be a one-for-one replacement basis, and/or a reimbursement – transfer agreement. Potentially it means that those who are lucky enough to be in this position, will be able to purchase a three bedroom house in London for £112,000, when it is difficult to buy a one bedroom flat for £250,000 in the capital.
Despite the obvious anomalies that this presents, not to mention the withering away of our country’s entire social housing stock, we feel the Labour party must not fall into the same Tory trap that we did over welfare reform, of simply opposing or not having an agreed position. Rather, we need to fight these proposals with more equitable, sustainable and attractive alternatives.
First, we could offer to social housing tenants a Do-it-yourself shared ownership scheme that is currently being run in in Windsor and Maidenhead. It is very similar to other shared ownership schemes except for one key element. Under most shared ownership schemes the buyers usually choose a home provided by a housing association. Under DIYSO buyers can choose a home on the open market, giving them far more choice of a property to buy. DIYSO allows you to buy a share in a home of your choice and pay an affordable rent on the part you do not own, and does not become the mole that exclusively undermines the entire social housing sector.
Second, as a party we should reclaim the co-operative mantle that the Conservatives have recently stolen and claimed to be their own, when we have a close and proud relationship with the Co-operative party that support many of our party’s members of parliament and councillors. We have many co-operative and mutual housing schemes that have a community membership where those who live in homes developed are required or are encouraged to become members,in some cases, alongside other local community members. That community membership is able to democratically control the housing organisation in some way through general meetings of the organisation. The benefits are that it establishes effective local community businesses as good as, if not better, service providers – with high satisfaction rates. And the development of strong and sustainable local communities benefits all individuals involved, helping many develop skills that help them into local employment and spending that in turn create more local support for the development of new housing schemes.
Finally, on a similar note, there is the community builders model ‘Community Life’ that uses stable housing as a platform for residents and neighbourhoods to achieve success. They incorporate resident engagement strategies into everything they do because we know that a healthy community is an engaged community. Tenant community builder communities are places of innovation that address some of the most significant challenges facing mixed-income populations by creating pathways to opportunities in four key practice areas: youth development, education, workforce development and personal asset building. As Will Hutton remarks, in his fiercely polemical new book, How Good We Can Be, ‘…the future is bright, if we can seize it’.
We are not advocating these models as the only options available as alternatives to the current Conservative government’s proposals to extend the right to buy to all social housing tenants, but rather to start a debate within the Labour party on what other models are available that will provider a fairer and more sustainable vision for social housing tenants – sustainable options that they would more likely support than the short-term bribe being offered, which potentially threatens to devastate this country’s entire national social housing stock.
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Jonathan Slater, Janet Daby and Mark Ingleby are councillors for Whitefoot ward in the London borough of Lewisham
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These 3 Councillors put forward excellent arguments for their ideas . It is a great shame that our full time politicians are mainly so set in their ways that they cannot come up with equally good policies . What I would suggest in addition to their suggestions is Compulsory Purchase of Agricultural Land suitable for building and without planning permission ,from farmers .To ease the burden on smaller farmers they only could be offered double the Agricultural value . This would stop the crazy escalation in building land prices and slow down the excessive increase in house values in some areas . Top quality estates containing houses of all types purely for rent would also help solve the housing crisis and with a percentage of well paid people paying market rents for superb housing could help to end the Tory inspired prejudice against residents in Social housing which is magnified by the media ,affects employment prospects and effects the prejudiced attitude of many policemen .Come on progress ,you should not need an elder of the party like Jeremy Corben to show you how to be Social Democrats , you have it in your own hearts . We all should want the same results and I think most of us do .
If we build on agricultural land, where do we grow our food? We’ll have to import more than we already do, which will only increase the carbon footprint and make the UK’s debt even bigger. Surely we should be building on brown belt before we use any other land.
Brian is right of course but that is not happening . The compulsory purchase of Agricultural land at agricultural value worked with every government prior to thatcher and gave us new towns like Peterborough etc . We cannot continue to deny people homes .
We can produce much more from the farm land that we have and I know that from a professional viewpoint . However the biggest threat to being able to feed ourselves to an extent in time of war is the population increase which has made us very vulnerable to being starved into surrender in war time .
The priority for the lower paid is somewhere to live and that is their human right which has been denied to them by this government and every government since James Callaghan
Denial of this statutory Human Right is Shameful in rich country especially when passively supported by the party we love .
It must end immediately .
Shame on us all !
Once you start building on agricultural land, you raise the “hope” value of all similar such land. This makes it very difficult to determine the agricultural use value since every field for miles around has an ehanced value. The “we need the land to feed the people” argument is not very strong as we import so much food and it’s often not the very prime agricultural land that’s built upon. But encouraging urban sprawl into virgin countryside should not be encouraged when every town and city has underused land. We need to never put into high rise blocks people who don’t want to live there, to make sure such units have plenty of space (including storage space, so often neglected by ‘architects’ of these) and by having carpeted landings etc do all we can to ensure high rise residents feel able to mix with their neighbours rather than operate as sole dwellers of high rise pigeon lofts.
The concept of Part-Rent-Part-Buy replacing not only full-blown RTB on estates and on acquired / purpose built singleton properties but also in the private sector is an excellent one. It would give residents a sense of stakeholder in the property they part rent. There would still be service charges, an ongoing point of contention for many RTB leaseholders and their successors, but halved and there’s no readon why councils cannot ease the pain over payment of chunky service charges – for instance when roof renewals or lift replacements are necessary – by introducing spread payment terms. But what are the legal obstacles, if any, to what is proposed by these Lewisham councillors? Is legislation needed? What would be the current government position – opposition and obstruction? In macro-economic terms, will such tenure inhibit movement of labour? How and at what value could the ownership element be disposed of – just back to the council, or on the open market?