There is also the element that council housing is often used for the very poorest in society and so when people can afford better housing they move out. The effect is to create ghettos and sink estates.
I was involved in government housing projects in the 1990s and at the time there were some radical proposals knocking around, such as a “void” tax, which was an additional charge on the owner of a vacant property. The idea was to create a fiscal incentive to either sell or rent empty housing. It didn’t get very far, mainly because the ruling Conservative party tend to have a lot of landlords in their ranks.
Back when I was still in the UK councils stopped building new council housing due to it not making any sense because of changes bought about by the Thatcher government.
They were forced to sell for peanuts. There was a lot of other stuff that made it very complicated. Essentially council housing disappeared.
Here in France the system uses private companies to build HLMs. These now tend to get sold off after a while, this could be to the residents or another licensed HLM operator. Changes in norms have made all this very complicated. There was a lot of housing built for civil servants such as Police, prison guards and council workers some of which have been sold of privately others remain depending on whether the establishment that was served is still there or not.
A system used in France is for every 100 HLM built about 8 are allocated to the the department to house people in real need, the private HLM company allocates the rest under certain rules. It’s not bad as long as there’s new HLMs being built.
This article explains in which prison Sarkozy will be held, and under which conditions. It’s instructive.
Much is said about the EU being in crisis blah blah, but I for one applaud the French judiciary system on this occasion. They take to task a potential criminal, and despite of all kinds of political pressure, proceed to his judgement . Once he’s proven guilty beyond any doubt, they punish him accordingly, nevermind his former social and political status (not only Sarkozy, but a whole lot of his accomplices as well).