We must move away from home ownership

In last Tuesday's Gazette, in '˜Gazette View', you called the housing market 'broken', with the seeds planted by this government's hero, Margaret Thatcher. Well said.
The Government must invest in a massive building programme of social housingThe Government must invest in a massive building programme of social housing
The Government must invest in a massive building programme of social housing

The pitiful social housing green paper from the Tories underlines how deep the rot in our society has spread.

It does nothing to tackle the immediate housing crisis, fails to deal with the root cause and is based, fundamentally, on the very market philosophy that created it all years ago.

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It all taps deeply into the worst aspect of the current approach to housing in this country... home ownership.

To continue to push people out of social housing into this ownership model and refusing to remove the cap on local authority borrowing, which thereby restricts the building of new council housing, contributes to a greater housing crisis and does not solve the problem.

The Government must invest in a massive house building programme.

We should be increasing the stock of socially-owned housing, redrawing the rules on affordable rents and making housing affordable to working people.

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Rather than focus on home ownership, why are we not giving tenants a genuine voice in, and the control over, the decisions that affect them - making councils and other social landlords accountable to the people they exist to serve?

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme