Letters: Don’t blame baby boomers for politicians’ mismanagement of housing
SIR – I object to homeowners being characterised as “clinging” to family-sized homes with “unused” bedrooms (“Where baby boomers are refusing to downsize – and fuelling a housing shortage”, Money, February 26).
We live in a four-bedroom house, but the “extra” bedrooms are far from unused, since when our house was built in the 1970s no accommodation was made for a home office, or clothes storage, or really any kind of storage at all.
We are not responsible for decades of government mismanagement of almost everything related to housing, from selling off council houses and not replacing them, to implementing a stamp-duty tax that stifles careers, since relocating for a new job comes at a substantial cost.
Julia Hunt
Tonbridge, Kent
SIR – While I certainly think stamp duty is too high, I cannot understand the rationale behind a stamp-duty holiday to enable the elderly to downsize (report, February 26). What about the people buying their houses?
A retired couple selling up to buy a smaller house would pay the stamp duty on that from the profit made on their current house. The growing family buying that larger house would have to increase their mortgage to pay the much higher stamp duty. Two or three years of mortgage repayments are needed these days just to cover stamp duty.
The fundamental problem is that stamp duty is a tax paid predominantly by the middle classes in the south east of England – yet another instance of fiscal drag.
Matthew Binns
Lindfield, West Sussex
SIR – One of the reasons older people downsize is to free up equity. Not all of us are able to afford the ongoing maintenance costs of our houses in retirement, as we might be asset rich but cash poor. My suggestion would be to increase the threshold for the 0 per cent stamp duty rate to £500,000, which might satisfy the financial dilemma for all concerned.
Denise Hilton
Guildford, Surrey
SIR – I know two older single ladies (both of whom had children who have now moved away) living in three-bedroom semi-detached houses in a sought-after area – entirely paid for by the welfare system. Why not introduce a regular review of the need for social housing, or a clause requiring downsizing as the family decreases?
Perhaps making tenants responsible for some proportion of maintenance costs would encourage moves. One of these ladies had a new boiler, bathroom and windows installed without charge, with contributions to wallpaper of her choice, and a payment for mould that she experienced only in the unused bedrooms.
Y Stevens
Swaffham, Norfolk
Rising anti-Semitism
SIR – In May 1939, at the age of 22, my mother arrived in England after suffering 14 months of constant persecution in Nazi-occupied Vienna. This included being forced to scrub the pavements of the city; she features in an oft-seen press photograph of the event.
She was forever grateful for the safe haven provided by this country. Indeed, she was one of the relatively few lucky ones, given the reluctance of many nations to give significant numbers of Jews the means to escape.
I doubt the thought ever entered her mind that her children and grandchildren, all living in England, might feel it necessary to seek safety away from this country, as a result of the wholly inadequate protection given to Jews by the Government, the police and now the judiciary. Highly visible anti-Semitism, buoyed by weekly demonstrations, is going unchecked – and is getting worse.
Comparisons with pre-war Germany may be exaggerated. Yet many Jews are leaving Britain, while others are seriously considering doing so. During the dark days of the 1930s, Chaim Weizmann, later to become the first president of Israel, was quoted as saying: “There are two sorts of countries in the world – those that want to expel the Jews and those that don’t want to admit them.”
The difference today, of course, is that there is one country that will gladly admit all Jews: Israel.
Michael White
London N3
Schools and anxiety
SIR – The mental-health crisis among the young (Features, February 27) begins with overbearing schools.
Modern disciplinary policies subject children to a witness-based inquiry (telling tales) every time there is a behavioural issue. Often parents are informed, as if to share the burden.
This creates a culture of anxiety and destroys the safe haven of home life. Children are left not knowing who will betray them, and with poor dispute-resolution skills. Where is the camaraderie? Are we surprised that young people at the start of their careers are still running to teacher?
Colin Clark
MP for Gordon, 2017-2019
Aberdeen
Spread the love
SIR – For years our village pub ran a hotly contested charity competition to see who could grow the biggest onion. Sets were provided by the landlord in April and judging took place on the second Sunday of September.
After the judging an auction took place, with donations from the villagers, and one of the most prized items was a jar of Shippam’s Bloater Paste (Letters, February 27), which was never knocked down by the auctioneer for less than £50. The lucky buyer was allowed to keep the jar safe for sale the following year. I would estimate that it made more than £500 for charity over the life of the competition, which came to an end during the pandemic. I have no idea where the jar currently resides.
Neil Robertson
Illston on the Hill, Leicestershire
SIR – Pauline Grove’s letter (February 26) about a Shippam’s employee who claimed to have lost part of his finger in the mincing machine reminded me of the butcher in our village before the days of health and safety.
He worked with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and apparently the ash fell into the sausage meat as he minced it. Those sausages were better than any I taste now.
Jane Tourle
Hellingly, East Sussex
Not just the ticket
SIR – Booking fees (Letters, February 24) are designed to limit the amount a ticket holder will get back if an event is cancelled or rescheduled, thus protecting revenue and profit for the ticket agency.
The addition of administration and transaction fees makes the situation even worse.
With the advent of e-tickets, the amount charged these days is utterly disproportionate.
P J Bryant
Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
SIR – While honeymooning at the Tavistock Hotel, London in September 1968 (£5 for a night, with a Continental breakfast served in the bedroom costing 2s 6d extra, or a full English in the room for 5s each), we decided to go to the theatre.
Harry Secombe was appearing in The Four Musketeers at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. A dress-circle seat cost 35s 6d, including booking fee. How prices have changed.
Bob and Val Newell
Marske-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire
Church bias training
SIR – The General Synod is, I assume, composed of practising Christians who try to follow Christ’s commandment to love one another.
I am therefore at a loss to understand why it feels that time and resources should be used to inflict “unconscious bias” training on every parish (report, February 26).
First of all, as your report makes clear, other bodies that have adopted it found it made no difference. Secondly, and much more importantly, it would be more to the point if the hierarchy of the Church stopped being blown around by every woke or green idea and concentrated on its prime purpose, which is the cure of souls in every parish in the country.
Dr Penny Billyeald
Pangbourne, Berkshire
Exhibit eh?
SIR – Your obituary (January 26) of Carl Andre mentioned his exhibition in 1989 in Tate Liverpool of Equivalent VIII, the work consisting of an arrangement of bricks that provoked a variety of responses.
One of the more original came from a local Scouser who, on the back of a skip full of rubble in the street outside a building being renovated in the city, hung the notice, “On loan from the Tate”, to popular approval.
Dr Roger Thornington
Canterbury, Kent
Time for a display of leadership on plastic waste
SIR – Wouldn’t it be brilliant if the Conservative Government brought in a law to ban all single-use plastic? All bottles, bags, food coverings – everything.
It would take a long time for households to use up their supplies, but at least it would start a change. Then, if the next government is a Labour one, the party couldn’t revoke it, as to do so would badly undermine its green agenda.
Joyce Wotherspoon
Morpeth, Northumberland
The MoD failed to engage with Forces families
SIR – The Ministry of Defence’s decision to pause the new accommodation offer for serving personnel (report, February 27) is welcome. The policy was based on results from a Future Accommodation Model pilot project that was poorly designed and badly executed, with an insignificant sample size.
In future, the MoD needs to engage families more in policy-making to ensure that the right questions are asked and the right solutions provided, especially when it comes to the fundamental issue of accommodation.
Having lived in military housing for more than 20 years, I can assure you that a military quarter is more than just a house; it is a community providing wellbeing, security and reassurance for serving personnel and their families. This community is essential for the Armed Forces’ resilience and their overall operational capability.
Allyson Arnold
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
SIR – Nineteen of my 23 years’ service was as a married soldier and in those 19 years we had 13 different married quarters in four different countries.
My penultimate posting in the mid-1990s was an exchange post with the Canadian forces. On the Canadian base we lived on, quarters were allocated by family requirements, not rank (with notable exceptions for the most senior officers). This did not appear to create any problems. The key may have been that the housing and furnishing was of a good standard for everybody, unlike my experience in MoD-provided housing in Britain, where I saw some junior officers accommodated quite palatially while some soldiers were living in housing that had been formally condemned.
My final posting back in Britain was at a unit where the military component had reduced and it was no longer viable to maintain separate married “patches”. All married officers and soldiers therefore lived in what had been the officers’ area. Again, this worked well, and as the senior warrant officer in the unit, I do not recall the commanding officer raising any concerns over “integration”.
It is a pity that the current debate is centred on potential loss of privilege for officers rather than the general poor standard of service housing.
Richard Scott
Kirkbride, Cumbria
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