I think its most unfair to expect tenants to move out ,  even when the brood as flown the nest , ive spent over 30 years in my council house andwould hateit if i was told to move , during that time we looked at buying this house twice and each time the morgage was far to high for us to afford ,

I grew up in the 50s/60s many jobs were for life, I remember attending a party for someone working at Woolworths celebrating 40 years, Council houses were built to help with the housing problems after the war and they were for life, after the brood had left and moved on many tenants would ask to move to a bungalow or flat for pensioners.

I lived in a Council House, what is happening now is a knee jerk reaction to a serious financial crisis, I had an argument with a local Councillor over the shortage of houses, like council houses, this was about 4 years ago and his old argument was Mggie did away with them, I blew my top, it is always the old argument "Maggies Fault" that was 25 years ago, the various governments have had a quarter of a century to put thing right and get building again but they spend much of their time blaming each other instead of getting on with the job.

Now we have half baked ideas that will cause more and more problems and it is all because no one has thought it out properly

If a person  qualifies for a council house and is given one as long as they pay the rent and look after the property that house should be theirs till they no longer need it.What people tend to forget is rent money is dead money, when they move from that property the house returns to the council and the tennant recieves no return on the money they have paid in rent even though they may have paid enough in rent to have bought the house.

Hi Podge, Welcome to the forum and Thank you for the information, for which I am in agreement. One advantage of renting, is that the tenant is free to move to another area, if one has to search for work. Not so easy today of course as work is now quite scarce. Large deposits,as required today, must be very hard to find, should anyone wish to buy and the job needs to be secure, another weak point to consider.

Val, Lovelly to see you here. --- Have no idea about any Incentives the councils have offered tenants, for moving to a smaller home. Like you point out,why have a bigger home than needed = more expenditure. Eve's bungalow, is nice and compact and easier to look after - not so easy as age and health, makes the work, that much harder.