HOUSING CONFERENCE: HOUSING PRIVATISATION 30 YEARS ON

Housing Privatisation, 30 Years on: Time for a Critical Re-appraisal

26- 27 July 2010, University of Leeds, UK

Organised by: Stuart Hodkinson, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (School of Geography, University of Leeds).

Steering group: Paul Watt (Birkbeck), Sarah Glynn (St Andrews), John Grayson (Sheffield Hallam University), Quintin Bradley (Leeds Metropolitan University), Glyn Robbins (London Metropolitan University) and Lee Crookes (University of Sheffield/MMU).

Next year marks the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most significant government policy agendas in modern British politics - the privatisation of public housing and the expansion of owner occupation. In 1980, the newly-elected Conservative government gave tenants of local authority housing ('council housing') the statutory 'Right to Buy' their council home at discounted prices. The Right to Buy was complemented by public spending cuts on housing, deregulation and a range of 'demunicipalisation' strategies aimed at transferring the remaining council housing to not-for-profit social landlords. Since 1997 New Labour has embraced this 'roll back' agenda, preventing local authorities from building new council housing despite the massive growth in housing waiting lists. At the same time, new market-based approaches, such as arms length companies, public-private partnerships, and choice-based lettings, have been 'rolled out' to what remains of the public housing stock in return for new investment to tackle disrepair. 30 years on, today less than a fifth of society lives in 'social rented housing' compared to 1980 when one-third of the population lived in council housing as a mainstream tenure of choice. At the same time, Britain is engulfed in a crisis of housing unaffordability and insecurity. In England alone, 1.8 million households - four million people - are on council housing waiting lists, nearly 100,000 live in temporary accommodation, and 54,000 households are overcrowded. While we are told by government and economists to celebrate the social and economic benefits of owner occupation and investing in the housing market, the contraction of affordable, secure, public rented housing in favour of reliance on the private sector is seen by critics as a major cause of today's housing crisis.

So, after three decades of housing privatisation in Britain, this public conference calls on academics, housing professionals, tenants' and residents' associations, policy makers, and campaigners to stand back and critically reflect on the aims, methods and, above all, consequences of this neoliberal agenda, and what lessons we can draw for future housing policy.

Keynote speakers include:
* Professor Peter Malpass (University of West England), author of Housing and the Welfare State (Palgrave MacMillan, 1995).
* Professor Danny Dorling (University of Sheffield), co-author of The Great Divide: an Analysis of Housing Inequality (Shelter, 2005)

Themes include:
* Historical emergence, role and experience of council housing (and non-market housing) in Britain
* The neoliberal turn in housing policy
* The role of think tanks, lobbyists, consultants in shaping housing policy
* British society before and after privatisation
* Winners and losers from privatisation: wealth redistribution, life chances, etc.
* Geographies of privatisation e.g. unpacking the urban/ rural, inner-city, high-rise / low-rise, devolution etc. experiences
* Council housing and social inequality - class, 'race' and gender
* Mass media representations of council housing
* Policy discourses of council housing.
* Evaluating 30 years of the Right to Buy, 20 years of stock transfer and 10 years of 'Decent Homes' including Arms Length Management
Organisations and the Private Finance Initiative
* Impact on the tenants' movement and wider political consequences e.g. class consciousness, political affiliations etc.
* Life on today's council estates, working class culture, the idea of community
* Political parties and privatisation - are they all the same?
* International influences and connections
* Wider linkages with urban regeneration, social mixing and sustainable communities, Housing Market Renewal, gentrification and the privatisation of public space
* Future housing policy
* Time for a third generation of council housing?
* Alternatives to the market: tenant Management, Coops, Community Land Trusts, squatting, eco-villages etc.

Session proposals:
If you would like to run one of these sessions or organise your own, send a session proposal with the title and its short description (within 200 words) to Stuart Hodkinson (s.n.hodkinson@leeds.ac.uk) by 1 January, 2009. All sessions will be announced on the conference website in January.

Individual papers:
Please send the title and abstract (within 200 words) of your proposed paper by 31 January, 2010. You can either wait for the official session announcement or submit now.

We very much welcome session proposals / papers / presentations from non-academics.

The programme will be completed by end of February, 2010; booking forms, prices and accommodation information will be available by then.

Keep checking the conference website:
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/conferences/housing-privatisation-confe
rence.html


Dr Stuart Hodkinson
School of Geography
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT
0113-343-1820
s.n.hodkinson@leeds.ac.uk