Good news and bad news.

[HampshireSeagulls]

But the council house accommodation was, as Dave the Gaffer said earlier, where we put the less fortunate! Most of these people had no hope of ever getting onto the housing ladder without this intiative. It was supposed to alleviate the cost of maintaining this housing stock, allowing local councils more flexibility with their budgets. It's not particularly Thatcher's fault that generations since have seen council housing stock as their "right" once they have been knocked up, turned 18, etc.

Oh yes, my wife is a Housing Advice Officer, so I know all the scams and tricks that modern lowlife will try and pull to get themselves into housing, even when they could afford to go into privately rented accommodation.

 

[London Calling]

The best stock got sold off at ridiculously discounted prices - up to 60%.

Of course you can't blame the tenants, for many it was the first occasion the state has given them something back. However, because the action was so unplanned, because there new provision of social housing it left local authorities with a smaller stock of housing but with the same level of poor housing, homelessness to deal with. This stock with all of its inherent problems was more expensive to maintain. With a large number of the tenants left being on benefits and as such not contributing to the upkeep. I recall Cathall Estate in Leyton with 80% of tenants on benefits.

Lambeth still has 9,000 people on its waiting list FFS.

The legacy: the unsold stock was and is poor, high rise or multi- levelled. only the most desperate people in London move in to such areas.

Combined with the high unemployment levels of the 80's and 90's the estates declined considerably and Britain's present underclass was formed,

A proud legacy.

Public housing was until the 80's in most areas, public housing. In the 1960's the GLC built housing for teachers. Yes some areas in London introduced a point system i the 60's. But nevertheless it was housing for all. Only with the decline of stock did the housing really change only the house the disenfranchised and our sink estates were born!

Mixed social tenure works, the housing stock needed improved management but this was just a clever way of buying votes and selling public assets of which my parents etc had paid for through taxation.