Life On The Ocean Wave With Grant Shapps

Grant Shapps thinks people could live in boats.

Grant Shapps thinks people should live in boats.

Yes I know I said it twice, but seriously, I might even type those words again in the vain hope that I will believe that he actually said that (he did) or that it makes sense (nope – it still doesn’t.)

A few years back, I interviewed the great man himself. This was of course some time before he could sit in his lair with a glint in his eye, dreaming up new and increasingly bizarre solutions to the housing crisis.

Crisis? What crisis? Yes, we have a housing crisis: housing benefit cuts are propelling large numbers of tenants towards fewer properties (well ones they can afford if they are now, or likely to be claiming benefits.) I’ve said before that surely that would be best achieved by revitalising rent officers, allowing them to set tight rent controls, rather than cutting benefits and hoping landlords will drop their prices (why would they where this is a shortage of properties?)

We need to build large affordable homes on city centre sites, under the Parker Morris standards. We can build them in skyscrapers or in well-designed low rise developments, not the Dovecots I have written about in the past. I doubt that developers are queuing up to build boats. (It just sounds sillier every time I type it.)

This will be a nightmare. Now, Grant when we met, was very keen to emphasise his admirable campaign for realistic rough sleeping figures, to the extent that he spent a well-publicised night sleeping outdoors one chilly Christmas eve. But apart from this, nobody in government seems to have grasped the reality of housing, such as the supply and demand part, and we are still in a febrile buy-to-let scenario, where owners still believe they are entitled to ramp up rents and luxuriate in money. Didn’t that used to be called profiteering?

But back to the boats. It’s already hard enough to get a mooring for a residential barge, I am led to believe. Does he mean we should all go on a cruise? As jolly as that would be, it’s hardly practical: the obesity crisis would be worsened by those notorious 24-hour buffets, and what if you are sea-sick?

Does he mean we should join the navy? Defence cuts will see to that. Rowing boats? Yachts? Well, I’ve fancied sailing in yling-yling just because I like the sound of the word. Or does he mean that blameless citizens, tax payers and claimants alike should be herded off into prison ships and forced to wade ashore every morning, that’s if they aren’t intercepted by pirates. Every child’s dream, but not very nice, even if we are piped ashore by lovely sailors.

Boats are not the answer. Not for nothing are boats big enough to live in long-term usually the preserve of the stupidly rich.

Grant, Grant Shapps – Grant Shapps are you out there? Earth to Grant Shapps!!! You are deluded, you are causing harm and your latest utterance is an absolute load of coracles.

The Strange Case Of The Missing Architect

I am rarely lost for words; you might even describe me as chatty (well, that’s the polite way of putting it) but the other day, I discovered something that left me absolutely speechless.

I’ve always wondered just who designs those nasty little orange euroboxes like my former home of Dovecot Towers which are disfiguring cities everywhere. Whoever they are, they express their hatred of humanity by designing homes that are less about domestic bliss and more about smiting people with vengeance. I imagine their wizened yellow faces contorted with malice, manically intoning their evil plans and cackling until dawn as they draw up the blueprints, satisfied at the huge amount of misery they inflict upon their enemies.

Who else could be held responsible? I know that developers pay this evil piper to call their tune, but seriously – what were the architects thinking when they designed those meagre little box flats? Does nobody ever reject their demonic plans and drag them out by the scruff of the neck, slapping them as they shout: “You’ve been a very naughty architect!”

In fact truth is worse than that. The architect is invisible and powerless. The architect is absent. You see, there is no architect. Buildings urban twat-flats are designed by anybody who fancies a try.

The excellent blog Bad British Architecture (see links) has coined an excellent phrase, which always makes me laugh: ‘developer vernacular,’ that is, buildings styled and envisaged by developers, who favour cost-saving uniform grey metal fittings and orange brick infill stuck onto a concrete box.

Exactly who is responsible, then? Anybody who fancies giving it a go, basically: the work experience girl, some bloke who was wandering by, the cleaner, the man who delivers the organic veg box, Jeffrey from Rainbow, and (on more than one occasion) a troupe of semi-trained gibbons.

Here’s what happens: they draw a childlike box, with no fripperies, no extras, no fancy accoutrements like strong doors, insulated walls, space, or cupboards. They squeeze everything into their tiny little closet and afterwards put a window-box outside and call it a balcony.

Seriously though – can you imagine the same happening anywhere else, where rank amateurs intent on torturing humanity are given free rein to meddle in what should be a skilled profession and thereby ruin innocent lives? (oh right – apart from letting agents.)

Please tell me I’ve been misinformed: please tell me there’s a law stating that houses must be planned with great skill by people specially trained to this, allowing for safety, comfort and even beauty (shouldn’t our homes be beautiful – if only for the sake of the poor blighters standing outside dumbstruck with horror or pointing and laughing.)

But apparently, that’s the way it is. The plans are drawn up with a stubby crayon, and if we’re lucky, they’re in a straight line and everything! Please tell me that’s not true.

Although thinking about it – why be so churlish? Why not embrace this notion of can-do. Since you’re asking, I’ve always fancied trying a spot of brain surgery, and I’ve also got this great fantastic idea for a nuclear power station. Somebody hire me please – after all, what harm could I possibly do?

Tipping Point

It was an intensely hot, super sunny day three years ago and flat-hunting had driven me to the brink of madness. After several fruitless weeks of openly disdainful letting-agents asking ridiculous rents for nasty little boxes, one agent actually seemed pleased to hear from me. He could show me a flat immediately (adding, when he remembered himself: “…I’ve had a cancellation, so I can squeeze you in for a quick viewing…let’s see… right now, actually.”)

How odd - he didn’t sneer. Stranger still, he listened to me and didn’t claim that the price had risen over night. Either he was being nice (don’t be silly) or could it be that he was desperate, too?

The agent arrived in the cliché branded Smart car, and ignored me to grandly shuffle some papers. His old-fashioned spiel was complimented by a rapidly dating wide-boy hair-style, erect with gel. He was in a hurry to show me the building which would cast a shadow over my life, a nondescript oblong block of orange brick, set back from the main road.
“They’re going fast, better make up your mind!” he insisted, gamely sticking to his script. My reticence clearly unnerved him.

“I suppose I could show you another one… ooh, you’ll get me in trouble…” he joked in a feeble attempt to get me onside.
The building was mostly empty, so I could take my pick. He seemed to be reading aloud from his own advert:
“You will enjoy a magnificent vista…” Then correcting himself, he continued, “I mean, there’s a view. If you like that sort of thing.”

I smiled vaguely. I was homeless and trying not to appear needy. I mentioned the other flats I’d inspected, all identical, bleak and eerily devoid of tenants, but he pretended not to hear. Louder this time, I said:
“No really; I’ve seen a lot of flats. Too many. Must be making your life quite hard.”

He looked unsettled. I don’t enjoy messing with people’s heads, but I had to make my point. I wonder if at that morning’s team meeting, somebody had suddenly noticed a pile of unlet newbuilds, and he’d been ordered to reach a target.

My phone rang, and I took a call from a landlady who - to my surprise - couldn’t conceal her eagerness to have me move in. I’d left a message answering her ad for a below-par flat well outside my chosen area. Politely, I asked for a discount. She admitted the price was steep and agreed to go lower.

Gel-boy was rattled. The flat I was standing in was already fifty quid cheaper than the original ad, for no clear reason. I decided to look again at the foyer, and then ask for a further reduction. Bartering in tourist markets makes me feel uncomfortable, but rents had been ramped-up by landlords, developers and letting-agents – the usual suspect ingredients in a layer cake of greed.

“Look,” I said, studying that ‘vista.’ “You don’t really need a quick decision, do you? There are plenty more flats just like this one…”

I moved in and spent summer nights on my balcony gazing across at cranes and the twinkling half-lit checkerboard of empty newbuilds in the distance, listening as Dovecot Towers came alive, only for it to die a lingering death.

And now, on another sultry summers evening, I can’t help but wonder if the moment a letting-agent condescended to haggle coincided with the precise time, perhaps the exact second that everything changed, when the rollercoaster property market ride began its perilous descent, careering downwards, out of control.

We're As Mad As Hell

Reklaw left this comment recently on quite an old post, so you might have missed it:

“We have been renting for the last three years and have had to move three times in that period. Two of the landlords decided to sell the property that we were living in, one after only three months into the tenancy - even through the property was advertised as "long term". Unfortunately the third move is now imminent. We have contacted our local council in the hope that they may be able to offer a solution only to be told that the wait for any property would be in excess of five years with no guarantee and at the most a one bedroomed flat may be offered. It would seem that we are destined to be nomads heading into retirement. Would be grateful for any comments/solution!!”

I don’t know much about Reklaw, but you know what; this comment really upset me.
Even though I try and put a positive spin on things, all renters, myself included, must accept that the genuine possibility that we might have to move every six months for the rest of our lives. What are we supposed to do? Move to Europe, where renting is the norm, and tenants are treated with respect, rather than as some freakish cash-cow/cockroach hybrid, to be milked dry and then eradicated?

It’s infuriating when people say: “…so move.” Do they imagine that magically, we beam our possessions from house to house like on Star Trek, and that the diligent flat-hunt is undertaken by the property fairy-grandmother?

Moving is always fraught and difficult, and letting agents still insist: of course it’s a long term let. Even my all time best ever landlord demanded assurances that I was in for the long haul, which I took to be two years. He gave me notice when he decided to sell after just eight months.

Moving is also inconvenient and unsettling. There are agency fees to be found, removal vans to hire and pay for, and the time-consuming task of multiple views. There’s overlapping deposits alongside rent in advance, and references to wheedle from lazy or reluctant landlords, who might be going bankrupt. That’s alongside the inevitable loss of internet, phone, and in extreme cases, water and power. Worse for me is the constant packing, unpacking and repacking, time after time after bloody time.

Social housing is scarce. We have no choice but to live this way, and successive governments have decided the private sector must build and then run rented housing. Tenants who stand up for themselves are portrayed as whining and belligerent.

You’d think we were demanding caviar, fresh flowers delivered daily, and stables for the miniature Shetland Ponies we’ve requested, all died pink, when all we want is security and fairness: things like repairs, and the freedom to remain unless there’s a genuine reason to turf us out. The right to vacant possession is regularly abused. When it is, landlords should be fined, and heavily. Owners shouldn’t invest in rental property unless they intend, and have the means for, long term lets, by which I mean decades, not months.

Tenants need a serious official body to protect our rights. The Health & Safety Executive (look upon their name and tremble) is regarded with respect, and a healthy measure of fear. Tribunals overseeing disputes in Employment, Disability and Equality are a proven, powerful and efficient way of making sure obligations are honoured.

But ultimately, what’s needed is a new law: “The Tenants Being Generally Maligned, Abused and Totally Shoved Around (Prevention) Act 2009.” I am aware this blog is regularly read in The House Of Commons. For the sake of people like Reklaw, can we get a sponsor? Because we’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.