Another recent Government initiative to
solve the housing crisis is the ill-thought-
out proposal that pensioners should be
encouraged to move from the family
home into sheltered accommodation.
The plan would be to free up private
housing stock, with the local authority
passing on any profit from letting the
property to pay the rent of a small
apartment.
solve the housing crisis is the ill-thought-
out proposal that pensioners should be
encouraged to move from the family
home into sheltered accommodation.
The plan would be to free up private
housing stock, with the local authority
passing on any profit from letting the
property to pay the rent of a small
apartment.
This somewhat panglossian figment of
Secretary of State, Grant Shapp's fertile imagination, poses the following questions.
How much profit would be available to pay
the rent after legions of staff had been
employed to administer the scheme and
how could the values of family homes be
protected from being converted to rented
accommodation on long and secure
tenures?
A viable alternative would be for local
authorities to be more efficient in their
use of housing stock by refurbishing
and letting the nearly half million
dwellings that remain unoccupied. In
addition, the 62,000 retail shops
predicted to close by 2018 could be
converted for domestic use, thus
helping to relieve a situation that is
clearly out of hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment