Ok I'm going to ask the question...

If there hadn't been such an explosion in the population over the last 15 years would we have more money to ensure that social housing was kept in good condition?

The explosion has benefitted the economy financially

So ...mus be mismanagement .

Thatch did her bit of course by flogging off social housing to voters

Who did very nicely, thank you ma'am. Whilst the rest of us scrimped and saved to buy a place at market value :mad:

dl

The main reason Thatcher allowed long term tenants to buy their council houses was the cost of repairing them and general upkeep, most of the houses were 40yrs and older and going to need modernisation, saved the government and tax payer a small fortune.

Guess the answer lies in the change in % of the population that claimed benefits.

The welfare state got stuck in a circle where it needed a higher population to fund increasing number of claimants, but with that population increase comes more claimants. During which resources dry up and infrastructure becomes overwhelmed requiring further financial outlay.

I'm not convinced that the 'explosion' did benefit the economy financially, I'd love to see real proof of that claim.

I've seen with my own eyes the pressure it has caused on housing, schools and the NHS etc.

You can't boost the population with millions of low skilled workers and expect there to be enough good quality housing to go around

I did but it took 10yrs many thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours work, as well as living in a building site for a large proportion of that time.

The numbers look good at the end, but don't tell what's gone into to it to get there, new roof, central heating, pointing, windows, kitchen, bathroom, replacing floor beams and boards, full re-wire, plastering, doors, carpets, wooden floors, and decorating, all adds up.

Always looks easy from the outside, but it takes balls and dedication, sure she made it possible for ordinary people to buy dilapidated old housing stock by giving them a discount based on the amount of years they'd paid rent for... hardly a give away.

Looks like you drew the short straw and sorry to hear that. I can only draw on the experience of a couple of work colleagues (in Hatfield) who had nice council houses and any problems were normally sorted out by council. I can't remember but I think they had to stay in the property for 5 years or they would be penalised? They were very happy to stay put.

I guess it depends on your own local authority.

David

About 10b of our 25b housing benefit bill goes to private landlord. That is 10b paid out to subsidise the idleness of private landlords!

Certainly the absolute cost of social housing didn't sink the welfare state. It was far cheaper than paying the private sector to house people. Ok you have to build social housing but maintenance isn't that much once they are built. There is no 'rent' component,

Good find.That stirred my whisky sodden memory. Proper corruption exposed :Suspiciou

David

Possibly, but I'm not sure what you can do about it. Unless you're advocating a Chinese style one child policy?

Controlled migration is the key, to stop surges in numbers, and for home grown children less child benefit to reduce reliance on state.

Goodness knows what we'll do in an emergency ( like this one ! ) when half the people running nhs have returned to rest of the eu.


Had to be said

Why should half the EU migrants working in the NHS return to their countries of origin?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...record-numbers


afaik there's no assurance any them will be allowed to stay

Not yet, nothing has been agreed or dismissed. No point in speculation.

As with all stats should treat with caution. Part of the reason for the applications being down is more rigorous language testing.

My own personal experience is that I see no mass exodus of EU migrants working in the NHS. We all know that their rights will be protected, even UKIP agrees with this.

There might be an exodus in the future though if the UK economy tanks and the EU economies improve. But that's the nature of economic migrants

Goodness knows what we'll do if you ever stop posting pish. (Had to be said.)

Why write such groundless, sensationalist rubbish?

And as Ding has already requested, I'd like to see this irrefutable evidence that the explosion in the population has benefitted the economy. I suspect that, in terms of the net overall effect, it hasn't at all. I don't need data to tell you categorically and unequivocally that it has put a huge strain on schools, housing, the NHS, other public services, roads, infrastructure, not to mention general quality of life.

Perhaps the most sensible suggestion you've ever made. :)

All i'll add is that both my doc and dentist is staffed by eu/non eu immigrants 80 percent ....

:confused: :cuckoo:

Its somewhat ironic that the UK gave out foreign aid in the form of contraceptives to third world countries. I assume to educate people to not have children when they cannot care for them (financially or otherwise).

Yet in the UK we allowed a welfare system that actively encouraged parent(s) to have children when they cannot afford to raise or house them. :cuckoo:

I really don't understand your "one figure" thinking on most of your opinions.

If those people employed by the NHS or your dentist weren't there then someone else would be. Just as this whole "Immigrants boost the economy" is just lefty clap trap. They have a job, if they didn't that job would be taken up by someone else. Minimum wage has increased over the last 15 years. The maths simply doesn't work out if someone is paid to do a job their nationality isn't part of the equation, unless of course you are advocating either people working under the minimum wage to boost profits or underpaying a person purely because they are foreign.
Any figures you may have read based on the liberal "immigrants are fantastic" ideaology would not include the time in the UK a person worked without an NI number (its not an overnight thing) or the untaxed money leaving UK shores which would be impossible to estimate.
It's an employers market. You're making out the UK has expanded its economy in line with the intake of immigrants. As if without it there would be some massive hole in the market. Try advertising a job, you'd get 100 applicants at least.

I mean for an remoaner such as yourself predicting doom and gloom, redundancies, unemployment etc etc surely you'd welcome a stop on immigration to make sure those that are currently here remain employed?.

Id be surprised if eu nhs are working on the sly lol

Exactly. I've never understood the rationale behind child support. If people have a child, that's their choice. If they can't afford to have one, they should consider this beforehand. Why should my tax pay for it!? One doesn't get pet support if one chooses to get a dog or cat. Population growth is one of the gravest problems the human race faces, yet, by remunerating them, successive governments continue to encourage people to procreate at an alarming rate.

Its another flawed system. If I didn't do overtime I'd qualify for it, hence I've never benefitted from it.
For an accurate picture of modern Britain you would do well to have a good look at my ex (feel free, she's a chubby **** now lol).
She's always worked less than 20hrs to keep housing benefit, council tax benefit and child benefit. She's got epilepsy so gets £50 per week in DLA, as well as £100pw from me and the father of her daughter.
The CSA doesn't talk to the council, benefits system etc. Just as the NHS doesn't talk to the DVLA whenever she has a fit. The council have just completely refitted her kitchen but my son had to pretend her husband was his 'uncle' when the workman were in place. The council and benefits system doesn't use the electoral roll even though I've used it in my job for the past 6 years. They've never had a council visit to make sure she's not cheating the system. She takes at least 2 holidays a year.
I seriously considered giving up work a few years ago as I didn't see the point working when you're worse off than those that don't.

I'm a Cladding Designer, and this just shouldn't have happened. Someone is going to go to jail for Corporate manslaughter.


The original specification is issued by the Architect in the NBS specification. This lays out what the building is made of, and what requirements are to be met. This `Should` comply with all building and fire regulations.


This is then taken up by the main contractor, who may want to tweet the spec. This will then be sent out to sub-contract cladding installer for Tender.


A Bill of quantities is issued along with the price. What usually happens is prices are above what has been allowed for, and saving are asked for. Part of this is for the cladding specialist to give alternative (cheaper) specification, but all `should` still comply with all current building and fire regulations. Somewhere down the line someone has specified a system that is clearly not fit for purpose. This will either be the Architect, main contractor, of cladding specialist.


By now, all offices will have been raided. There will no doubt be an email chain, or specification manual stating what has been installed and who specified it. God help the person / company that did.


A rainscreen system, like the one used should have either a Kingspan K15 rainscreen insulation board or better still a Rockwool rainscreen board installed. The Rockwool board is actually main up of crushed rocks, so has an extremely high fire rating. But this is far more expensive than other alternative products.


There should have also been a fire strategy plan issued, showing where to install fire stops / barriers, and what fire rating these need to be. These are installed between certain floors, to stop fire from rising between the rainscreen outer leaf, and the insulation board. The fire therefore cannot rise above a certain amount of floors through the rainscreen system.


Looking at the fire, it's clear an inferior insulation board was used, and fire stops clearly not installed

That's shocking. How far back up the line are checks carried out? All the way back to the architect, the main contractor, the sub contractor? There could be a lot of people doing jail time.

You'd have to think that this has probably been the case in many renovations that this person(s) was liable for also.
If said person doesn't hold their hands up quickly to this could there be other tower blocks at the same risk?.