“disident 2:

Ref: Your post 5.14pm.Mon 5 March.

No mystery here, but I'm not going to try to explain on this site, would take me too long.

Suggest you read up about Housing Associations/ Social Housing. Or simply write to the City Council Housing Department and put your questions to them.”

“Why are some Council houses owned by the City hived off to a council housing association? Who owns this association? Why are Council houses transferred to these set-ups? They are the questions that should be asked.”

“Eastonian:

You evidently have a strong desire to enter into personal conflict with me whenever you see a remote possibility of doing so.
It might be useful though for you to attend a few English Language instruction classes before you again decide to criticise my ability to construct a sentence, or correctly put together a few sentences.
The whole paragraph from which you extracted one sentence and enclosed with quotation marks, is quite correctly constructed and with accurate punctuation. I suspect you may have a problem with your ability to correctly interpret what you are reading.

You accuse me of contradicting what I had written in a previous post. Nonsense ! You simply are not capable it seems, of engaging in a debate where a bit of 'less shallow' thinking is called for.

I posted a much more comprehensive reply to your post of 3.11pm today, but it has been taken off for whatever reason, thus this relatively brief post.

Please try taking off your blindfold for a while and take note what's really going on in the country these days.”

“@Eastonian Labour was opposed, but 'new labour' decided it was a vote loser to continue with the opposition. Instead in 1997 they reduced the discount to discourage it in areas like London. They also changed the rules in 2005 so that tenants needed to have been in tenancy for at least 5 years, and those purchased after October 2004 can not be placed on the open market but have to be offered to the previous social landlord for first refusal.”

“in reply:-hopefully-the proposed transport improvement scheme-includes pedestrian controlled lighting-northbound A6-Red Hill Circle-as this is within the city boundary.”

“Thanks for clearing that point up, reubedube, and in doing so have contradicted what you wrote in your earlier post about council house tenants - "they will not, however, ever own the property however long they might live in it". Bit of a jumbled up sentence, I know, like many of your anti Conservative rants.

It seems to me that in your haste to harangue a Government that did good for thousands, nay millions, of council tenants your argument has lost all credibility, as usual.

If this was such a bad policy why didn't New Labour reverse the situation, after all, they had 13 long years to do it!!”

“There is still a Right to Buy council houses.

I know many thousands will disagree with me, but in my opinion that was one of the worst things Margaret Thatcher ever did wrong, among the many other things she still has to answer for that still are to this country's detriment.

It is one of the factors from which we still see the effect, a drastic shortage of social housing.

Many of those who will disagree with me will be those who capitalised on it by purchasing their
home at a stupidly discounted price, later selling at earliest allowed time for the proper market price, raking in a huge profit.

They would then purchase a property through normal marketing channels, using some of the profit as a deposit on the new purchase. Safe now in the knowledge that they had a 25 years or
so mortgage and a handy few thousand pounds in the bank to fall back on if need be.

In those days of course there was an element of tax relief if you were paying a mortgage on your home. And yet critics would go on about "council tenants paying subsidised rents" !

What made the whole idea even more stupid, was the fact that councils were not allowed to use
any of the proceeds from the sale of their housing stock,toward the building of replacements.

Margaret Thatcher wanted to make us all share-holders and home owners, selling everything off cheap; she succeeded in creating a society highly motivated by greed !”

“Is the 'Right to buy' option no longer available on Council house properties?”

“davidh11 If you mean you are a private rented tenant (like myself) then you are covered for improvements and repairs too if they are not an acceptable standard. Your tenancy rights are just the same as a council one. Ive never had to do the repairs or building improvements. Everyone including council tenants, private tenants, homeowners are responsible for general internal improvements like decorating etc.”

“davidh11:

There is of course one very big difference between yourself and a council house tenant.

You own your own home, thus you will naturally look after it and keep it in good repair, you may
decide at some stage to leave it to any child/children you may have. Or the monetary value of it.

A good council tenant (and the majority are good tenants), will look after their council house and maintain it as far as internal decorating and any minor repair work is concerned. They will
not, however, ever own the property however long they might live in it.

Major works, for example an electrical rewiring (necessary after I think 25 years), complete external repaint - each 7 -10 years (depending on the local authorities specification), and a variety of other major items necessary to preserve the overall condition of the property, are carried out by the landlord.

When one tenant ceases to rent the property, for whatever reason, the council want to rent it out to a new tenant. They would be unable to do that if it is allowed to fall into dis-repair. Just as your home is an investment of yours, so are the houses owned by the council, an investment of the council.

If you should decide to make yourself homeless in order to obtain a council house - which of course I don't think for a moment you would - be warned. Making yourself homeless deliberately
would disqualify you from becoming eligible for social housing, so wouldn't pay to go down that route would it !”