State development
It was reported this week that not only is what little redevelopment that’s happening in the town centre being funded by us via the state, but also that building in Swindon’s front garden is also being bankrolled by public funding. Now I don’t mind, too much, the tarting up of Swindon town centre being paid for by our taxes. If the regeneration of Swindon town centre hadn’t stalled it would have been paid for through levies on developers which, ultimately, gets passed on to those that buy the properties and then to those that use them, i.e. the local population. Either way, it’s taxation at the behest of local government.
Rather more objectionable is use of our money to build houses that aren’t wanted locally and now seemingly aren’t wanted by anyone else either. For decades central government has prevented most local councils from spending money from council house sales on building new houses. They still do. Yet now central government’s throwing money at housing developers, to the tune of almost £50,000 per house built in the case of the Swindon scheme.
If our money is going to be spent concreting over the local countryside, I’d rather us locals had a say in where and when it’s done.
3 warblings:
I think Swindon could possibly do with more proper Council houses, and not just for people with "issues"
People need stability, this brave new world doesn't seem to provide much. I could now begin a rant about what the British people have blithely foregone that their ancestors fought so hard for, but I am probably inaccurate and certainly not objective so I will spare you.
oh sorry, I should clarify, what I was trying to say (badly) was that I would not object to taxpayers money funding Wichelstow providing the houses were not so expensive as to be out of reach of normal working class people, and not just through those ropey half buy/half let deals either.
Also, they should not build on South Leaze. There, I said it.
All the best
NIMBY
I suspect we’ll only get to social housing for ‘normal’ working people if they first build enough to house all those with issues. But this scheme only gives a small increase in social housing; its main effect is for the social housing to be built earlier than it would otherwise have been.
Ultimately, the only way to make houses more affordable is to build more of them, lots more of them. But the idea that building thousands more houses in Swindon will somehow solve the housing problems of the whole of the south west — which seems to be the ‘logic’ behind the government’s ‘regional spacial strategy’ for the south west — is just plain daft.
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