DISPATCHES ON CHANNEL FOUR SHOW HOW RACHMAN IS BACK.

Jon Snow and the dispatches team showed on Channel 4 TV how the slum private landlords are back. As they say on their websight...

"The housing charity Shelter estimates that there is a shortage of a million homes in the UK. Britain today has a housing crisis on a level with that at the end of the Second World War but is building fewer homes than at any time since the First World War.

We were told by a number of housing officers that local authorities dare not inspect many establishments for fear that they will have to re-house those inside.

This is yet another problem that can be laid at the door of Margaret Thatcher.  She actually ring-fenced housing which mean that Councils could not aquire social housing or build any new council houses as this was what she called Municipilisation. At the same site she set of a council house buying spree by promoting the idea that "Everyone should own their own home and should have the right to buy their council Houses. So thats how we ended up with yet another and greater shortage of affordable houses.

The recession has speeded up this process and there is nowhere near enough social housing to take up the slack. I have been fortunate myself but i do have first hand experience of just how bad it can get. In the Mid 70s me and my partner were rudely woken when a literal torrent of rainwater poured through an unknown hole in the roof at a grotty little house in Salford... Since demolished and redeveloped. The landlord was only available you knew his address and literally followed him home to get any repairs done. The Mice were totally tame and used to come out to play in broad daylight. A terrible stink in the bathroom was tracked a rat which had under the bathroom floor boards. The electric wiring was dreadful and dangerous and this actually electrocuted our cat. We needed to slam the front door because it was badly fitted and one day as we shut the door, the entire rear window frame, wood glass and plaster jut fell out onto the floor. Probably this had been loosened by constatn traffic vibration from the heavily conjested A 57 main road but it had never been fettled or repaird and our only luck was that no one was sat by the back window or they might have been maimed or even killed.

 which  was the kind of place a friend of mine from  Bradford Yorkshire referred to as a typical Fuckin Ratter. I couldnt wait to get out of that place

I searched west and north Manchester and found a wonderful detached house with a nice wooded garden and a landlord called Mr Robinson who was surely an angel. The flat was an entire ground floor with huge picture windows lookin out over the Church at the front and patio and hidden garden at the back with french windows. The rent was actully lower than the dump we had left and the landlord would turn up to mend a burst or anything that  needed attention almost  as soon as you put the phone down. We even had  a nice dry cellar which  we painted and turned into a band practice room. This was the hottest summer of the Twentieth century.... 1976 and that room was a good place to sit and read to avoid the heat.

For the last 30 years i have stayed at my current address. I and others found some housing in reasonable condition but under a threat from the Clutches of the Department of Transport and the Lancashire County Council  who planned to demolish lot of houses to make way for the dreaded M65 motorway which was rumoured to be running from Preston to Hull on the East coast. The County Council compulsoraly purchased the houses in this village and moved in low rent tenants as a temporary measure so I and others moved in, formed a Friends of the Earth group in Pendle and fought the M65 to a standstill. A housing association took charge because Pendle Council had been prevented from acquiring them due to Thatchers legislation and after a slow start gradually undertook repairs although we had to shame them to force them to start this work.

The Housing association were not without sin however.  Social housing is supposed to be reserved for people who cannot afford to buy but our housing association made quite a prophet which mysteriously disappeard by puttin up individual properties in the village for sale on the open market when existing tenants moved on. The original buying price for these properties was as little as £4000 at what was known as demolition value. but the housing association was selling them off instead of moving in new tenants and for as much as £120K, a considerable prophet which then suddenly appeard to vanish.

One day the truth will out no doubt but the latter half of the 20th Century seemed to be repleat with scams and illegal rake offs so I suppose they were no worse than a bunch of MPs, Bankers, Journalists or Police Officers. Now of course those "Caring" (surely some mistake) Tories propose to make squatting in domestic properties, a criminal offence.  Thats going to do a lot of good for the homeless isnt it.?  At the risk of sounding like a trot i can only say that someone once said,  "Property is Theft. and i feel i must agree.