Council Housing - November 2010

The most common problem at my surgeries and in my correspondence is the unsuitableness and the unfairness of almost every aspect of the council house system. The allocation is made strictly on assessment of need: those in greatest need go to the front of the queue. Why is it therefore, that once you get a council house you are there for life irrespective of your needs having changed. It is absurd to have tenants occupying houses with empty bedrooms, their families having grown up and moved on, whilst other young families are cramped into dwellings with too few bedrooms.

I can think of no other tenure where you get a property for life, without review, and at only 20% of the going market rent.  

There is a dreadful shortage of affordable homes in the New Forest. It would be fairer to all to increase council house rents to something nearer the market rate and use the revenue to build some more. Equally, we would get a much more efficient and fairer allocation of the available housing stock if tenancies were for five or ten years rather than for life. Of course, you cannot change the terms of the agreements of those who have already entered into them. So, the new regime would only apply to new tennants after the proposed legislation passes through Parliament, but I am convinced that, over time, it would improve the lot of those families that rely on council housing