The Battle In The Streets

The biggest asset an ordinary hard working person will ever have is probably a home of their own. Tens of thousands of pounds taking a third of your life.

Few ordinary people can afford to subsidise millionaire property developers. However that's exactly how "market prices" work in Gateshead. The market in a pathfinder is artificial. It is not related to reality and the free market of other property deals. Instead the council decide the market boundaries, the price and when it will be paid. That's why the Joesph Rowntree Foundation found that in pathfinder areas residents received £30,000 less than the real market value outside pathfinder areas. Being a pathfinder means the market has one customer - the local council.

However the local council want to make a profit from selling land to millionaire property development firms so the reality is that you get people out for the least amount of money possible rather than a fair independent valuation.

Tish Brown, in Saltwell and Bensham, could lose £40,000 by selling her 11 room home to the council. In any real market the average price of an average 3 bed semi is £180,000. Tish should be able to get between £200,000 and £250,000 for her huge home. However to Gateshead council an 11 roomed house is not a real home and needs to be demolished to build "family homes". It begs the question of what kind of family needs more than 11 rooms in their house?

In the distorted world of pathfinder the local council compare Tish's home with doss houses and maisonettes. Small wonder their "full valuation" is so low.

To help persuade people to go the council claim they are running out of money and future offers may not be so generous. Boarding up the other houses gives a feeling of abandonment and adds the pressure onto the poor home owner. The effect of selling homes below the true market price impoverishes those who have saved all their working lives to provide themselves with home. It transfers wealth from hard workign families to property development firms and house builders via the local authority. Instead of creating a sustainable community it seeks to reshape existing communities by clearing out those on average salaries and replacing them with the rich who already have huge housing choice.

No wonder Tish is mad. We all should be mad!


Link
Evening Chronicle

Annual General Meeting - 6th December 2007

This year our AGM will take place at Whitehall Road Methodist Church in Gateshead from 7pm on 6th December 2007.

All Saltwell and Bensham Residents can attend to hear the latest on Gateshead Council's mass demolition programme and what we are doing to stop it.

Come along and bring a neighbour!