David Cameron's proposed housing and planning bill will make 88,000 council homes vanish in England by 2020 warns the Local Government Association (LGA). Town hall leaders fear that this will only aggravate the housing crisis that the nation is currently facing.
According to RT, the LGA forecasts that councils will sell off 66,000 houses under the current Right to Buy scheme by 2020 with this new bill. It predicts 22,000 more council-owned homes will be lost. This means families will be forced to transfer to more expensive private rental properties, adding a collected £210 million to their cost of living.
PM Cameron's new proposed bill is aimed at extending the locations where starter homes can be constructed. This means, instead of social housing, properties will be replaced by 'affordable' housing and low-cost homes, which will look like American welfare housing model, according to a report by Left Food Forward. This is Cameron's desperate step to reverse the declining home ownership that has plagued the nation over the last ten years.
The Guardian wrote that Lord Porter, the head of the nation's Conservative councillors, said the bill would drive the people into more expensive rented properties. This would make it harder for them to save enough money to pay for the down payment of their own houses, which is at an average of 116 percent of the yearly income of a first-time buyer.
The government responded to the allegations of the LGA, which Porter also heads. The Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said, "More council housing has been built since 2010 than in the previous 13 years."
The spokesman said there were more houses built with the help of the right to buy during the first year of the scheme, which shows that the council is fulfilling their promise foproviding affordable homes in the next three years. The housing bill will make sure that the income made from the sale of high value council-owned homes will be reinvested in constructing new homes that are efficient and will help people own homes through right to buy.
