Housing crisis
Although the issue is intensely political or Political the funding of social housing (for which read Council Houses by any other name) deserves further scrutiny.
For some time the suggestion that the house building sector in the islands was under severe financial pressure has been circulating and as I pointed out in April, the impact of 2% cuts was bound to be felt somewhere.
What is dispiriting is the total inability of the current Government to make a coherent argument about efficiencies, preferring to try to match oranges and apples and claim an increase in orangeness as a result.
Having studied public sector housing financing in the Western Isles for some years (and admittedly not being really clear about how the whole crazy system works) I can see through the misleading quote
Of course, the role of the Labour candidate as the leader of the charge might ring alarm bells with the public were it not for the fact that the SNP seem unable to refute his claims in any detail. The public deserve to know if the housing allocation has shrunk or grown, and the impact that this will actually have in the islands, and I will report the actual; outcome against the various claims in due course.
Anyone responsible for misleading claims will be pilloried, with full details of their 'misstatements', but in the meantime I am gathering together the various pronouncements they have made for later use.
For some time the suggestion that the house building sector in the islands was under severe financial pressure has been circulating and as I pointed out in April, the impact of 2% cuts was bound to be felt somewhere.
What is dispiriting is the total inability of the current Government to make a coherent argument about efficiencies, preferring to try to match oranges and apples and claim an increase in orangeness as a result.
Having studied public sector housing financing in the Western Isles for some years (and admittedly not being really clear about how the whole crazy system works) I can see through the misleading quote
This will see about 36 new affordable homes brought to the area, compared with the 33 which were approved in the last financial year.when the numbers referring to the houses actually delivered show a completely different picture.
Of course, the role of the Labour candidate as the leader of the charge might ring alarm bells with the public were it not for the fact that the SNP seem unable to refute his claims in any detail. The public deserve to know if the housing allocation has shrunk or grown, and the impact that this will actually have in the islands, and I will report the actual; outcome against the various claims in due course.
Anyone responsible for misleading claims will be pilloried, with full details of their 'misstatements', but in the meantime I am gathering together the various pronouncements they have made for later use.
10 comments:
Angus, really sorry but I don't think this new blogging set up is hitting the spot. By all means have an editor to keep you out the libel courts, but the team blog ....well....doesn't really do anything for me ...rather have one or two quality posts a week.....
What housing crisis? A *quick* web search shows 17 houses (there'll be more) in the Stornoway area alone up for sale for less than 100K. Extend the search further and the number goes up.
What other part of the UK has such a high proportion of houses that are this cheap? Are you telling me that they are beyond the reach, by all legal means, of *all* the people on the housing waiting list?
Buy a house for 90K, put down a 10% deposit, and even a combined income of 17K gives you a choice of 21 different mortgage providers. I keep reading in the local, in the court reports section, of person X who has an income of often much more than that who'd be in danger (according to his solicitor) of losing his job if found guilty / sent to jail etc.
There's parts of Bucks, Herts, Surrey where 230-250K won't even get you a one bed flat anymore. There's the housing crisis...
anon 9:33 PM
What drugs are you on?
Where can i get some?
Housing crisis is a myth. The Urras built an affordable house in the old school, and it is stil on the market 2 years on.
If the demand and crisis was such, that would not be the case.
Poster 9.33 is bang on. You cant get cheaper houses anywhere else in the UK. Add to that the high percentage who work in the council per head of pop and you have a relatively affluent sociey.
Anon 9.33 and Anon 6.21 Not everyone can afford to buy a house.You mention the cost of houses in Islands. You obviously do not take in to account the low wages of the Islands. What we need is affordable housing for rent.
Crisis, what crisis????
The 800 people on the waiting lists for rented houses that don't exist can't afford to buy the houses that are for sale.
Labour and the SNP can't both be right about this, and I look forward to Angus telling us whihc of the two was wrong.
The waiting list is both a sham and a scam in terms of genuine need.
How come a 22yo I met who pulls 9.5K a year has got himself a semi in Stornoway? Hard work, savings, family help.
A different, real, example. A family of three in a four bedroom house, and the teenage son wants their own - dirt cheap - bachelor pad. Without paying much for it. So he's on the list.
Darfur is a "crisis". He is not a "crisis".
Want and need aren't the same thing.
Eliminate the people on the list who don't need a house. Eliminate, from the remainder, those like the second example with more than adequate accommodation. See how long - or short - the list is then.
Plus - this is the only part of the UK where the majority of local families are "land rich". Most people have a sibling, parent, or 1st/2nd cousin with some land somewhere on which a house can be plonked.
Anon 10.15 Thank God you are not our landlord. Just because you have your own house. Obviously you do not want cheap housing built for the peasants
11.12AM Cheap housing? The price ranges for "Affordable" or "Cheap" housing in most of the UK are far more than for the average house for sale in Stornoway.
There are lots of houses for sale. They are cheap. Therefore, there's no housing crisis.
It is hardly as if we do not have ample land. More and more bare land crofts, empty houses running to ruin, that is the scandal to my mind.
Our expectation has always been that we would hope that our children would be able to build houses on our croft should they wish to stick around. However Shucksmith makes it clear that keeping people on the land is not the long term plan. Instead our kids will have to queue for "affordable housing" on some common grazing or other regulated by a committee of busy-bodies.
What would Shucksmith and co like to see a vast unpopulated sheep ranch?
First time buyer house prices here are no different to many other rural areas in Britain, and wages the same also. People elsewhere have different expectations, i.e that you save like hell for a few years before buying your first house. The big difference is that in the rest of the UK your first house is likely to be a shitty box, with no view, a tiny back yard and a busy road outside, and still cost more than 90% of the houses here.
Stop winging, get some perspective, and lets have a building strategy that puts the people and heart back into the crofting villages. The value of a family on the land is beyond comparison with any amount of stock.
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