You want a spackfest? Well I've had a bad weekend so.....

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

In order to have that right though, you'd first need to be eligible to actually be a tenant of a council house. I don't imagine single blokes in their early 20's, with no dependants, would have been high up their list of prospective candidates.

I think your correct about the eligibility criteiria but not sure that tenants actually had a right to purchase their council houses until the 1980 Housing Act. Prior to this Councils were able to sell houses/flats to tenants but, as Hiney said, the numbers sold was very low. Birmingham Council sold about 10% of their stock during the '60s and the first London sale was in Harold Hill, where my mum's relatives are from, in 1967. Horace Cutler, who felt that local authorities shouldn't be in the business of providing social housing(?), took this further when he was leader of the GLC in the 70's and was a housing adviser to MT after she became leader of the Conseravtive Party.

 

[e77]

Whilst I'm still a lefty at heart, I can be HARSH sometimes. Old people on their own in big council houses is something that annoys me.

Yes, I know she's lived there for 49 years, and has all her memories there.
Yes, I know she's paid rent all that time.

BUT, she is on her own. She does not need THREE bedrooms. She can't look after the garden. Half the rooms stay closed all the time. She basically lives in 2 rooms to save heating bills.

Forcibly remove her. Put her in a decent 2 room apartment, preferrably around minded folk, that she can manage to heat and look after herself. She may meet new freinds. She may even LIKE it.

The three bed house, will enable a family to move out of a guest-house or crappy one bed flat.

And Yes, I know this is someones Nan, we're talking about. It was my own Nan, who lived in one room of a lovely 3 bed council house in Storrington for 20 years.

In times gone by they could force you to downsize.

The main problem is council houses were sold off and not replaced which has lead to a shortage of housing stock ever since.

What we are going through is a much needed correction which will hopefully bring more first time buyers into play. Harsh, but necessary.