Well known and award winning architect, Peter Barber, has signed our statement calling for Labour to commit to ending Right to Buy. He recently appeared in a Channel 4 programme on housing. Here are some extracts from it.
“We should have a social housing programme on the scale were were able to manage after the Second World War. If we were building 150,000 homes a year the problem would very quickly be resolved. In addition we need to end the ‘Right to Buy’. They’ve done it in Scotland, they’ve done it in Wales. So you know, what seems on the face of it like a nice idea, actually undermines the whole system of social housing because it means that the housing stock is depleted. And the third part is, I think, at the same times as building lots of social housing, we need to have rent controls.
Clearly, housing is one of the principle drivers of our economy, and I think that’s where the problem lies. It’s commodified and it’s seen in terms of balance sheets rather than basic infrastructure. And I think, you know, in a city as wealthy as London there shouldn’t be 7,000 people living on the pavement. Ultimately politicians have to commit a lot of money to social housing.”
Is there a stigma behind social housing?
“It depends who you talk to. I think some people think that the social housing programme we did after the second world war was one of this country’s greatest achievements. At a time when the country was broke after the Second World War, we were building a health service and we were embarking on a massive social housing scheme. In my mind it’s one of our proudest achievements as a society. There are those who are snobbish about it.
If you look at Vienna there are still half the population of that city living in social housing. And there are lawyers living next door to road saweepers. It’s a fantastic kind of mix with no social stigma at all.”
In this article from the Guardian Peter Barber said:
“We could end the housing crisis overnight, if we wanted to,” he says. “We should introduce private sector rent controls, halt the selling of council houses under right to buy, and build 150,000 council homes a year funded by direct taxation.”
Here he is giving a lecture on receipt of an award for his work. It begins with a picture of the demonstration to Kill the Housing Bill.
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 