Be informed

I was very pleased to hear Councillor Bill Randall being invited on to Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday to discuss current inequities regarding housing in the context of the acute shortage experienced in Brighton and Hove where he is a senior figure and a distinguished housing expert. This being the BBC, he was pitted against Adam Memon (right) of the Centre for Policy Studies an apologist for continued expropriation of public housing by private landlords and provision of public subsidy for this through high housing benefit allowances. Seemingly in Brighton and Hove, 6000 council dwellings have been sold since Thatcher’s flagship ‘right to buy’ policy of the early 1980s; one thousand of these have passed into the private rented sector. Another tranche have been resold to private sector buyers from outside the town – Brighton, in particular, is extremely expensive and ex-council houses are sought-after properties. A cursory glance in the window of an estate agent shows a three-bedroom example for sale at £275,000. The exchange has been captured here:

Picture: Bill Randall: brightonandhovegreens.org; Adam Memon: CPS