The UK's Housing and Planning Bill, which extends the “Right to Buy” to housing association properties and forces local authorities to sell off their most valuable stock is a "potential catastrophe", a political analyst predicts.
What the Tories call an "opportunity" is in fact threatening only to "further enhance their poor-beater CV", Steve Topple has argued in an op-ed at the Political Sift political and social commentary blog.
Statistics already show 1.4 million households on social housing waiting lists in 2014, which contrasts with only 43,000 new homes being built. Cameron's UK has also witnessed a devastating 55% rise in homelessness since he came to power in 2010. Calling the new bill "self-serving" Topple predicted such legislation would only worsen these already horrifying statistics.
Agreeing with other commentators that the legislation especially attacks poorer families living in rural areas, with no guarantees of where new housing stock will be built, Topple had the following commentary:
The proposed plans to force local authorities to sell off their most valuable properties looks disastrous, at best. Aside from the fact the government is ignoring the fact many of these properties are adapted for the disabled, it also appears to brush over the serious effect it will have on council’s ability to replace these homes.In addition, Topple comments that the "Right to Buy" will further inflate the housing bubble, which is projected to burst, although the real victims of the bill will be poor families in desperate need of social housing. Accusing the Tory government of running a "chumocracy", he points out that personal debt is already at record levels, but it will not stop Cameron's regime and his cronies from getting the helpless and the poor further into debt.
Housing Associations have already backed the "Right to Buy" legislation, but Topple urges opposition parties to "do everything in their power to stop this despicable legislation" when it comes to a vote in the Commons.
The #MontOrder declared absolute opposition to the #neocons, and criticized @Google https://t.co/uFTS8NwWZ7 pic.twitter.com/tSehX8P3P5— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) November 3, 2015
