Government buys back 36,347 military homes to improve housing for forces families and save taxpayers billions

21 comments

1. Another disgraceful move from this shameless Labour government. Why haven’t they turned the united kingdom into a utopia and solved world peace yet?

2. Good to see. Tories strategy of ‘selling everything to mates at discount’ then pay rent to keep using it at extortionate taxpayer rates is despicable, Labour seriously need to sort PFI Hospitals out too albeit Blair was a fan!

3. Everyday this government has come out with something positive . Why didnt the tories announce anything but cuts .

4. Know someone who had a baby and was eligible for army housing. We helped them move, and everyone quickly realised it was not habitable for a young family with a baby. It was heartbreaking for everyone. They ended up having to live apart for a few months whilst an alternative was found but we suspect that same place was simply reused. It’s been in a shameful state for years… I hope it gets sorted, they deserve better.

5. Do I have this right we sold military housing to rent back and yet were somehow still responsible for all repairs?

   That’s just giving a company money with extra steps.

   What the actual fuck!

   Edit, so this is basically a loan to government secured against housing. With worse terms than a bank. I.e you pay it back forever and you don’t own the property. John Major’s government went to this guy and said, give us some cash and we will pay you rent forever on these appreciating assets that you will have zero responsibility for. Incredible deal if you’re not the tax payer.

6. Yay, a sensible move by them. Ridiculous how much they are paying to get out of it though.

7. Why are they buying them back when they shouldn’t have been sold in the first place, very likely someone profited quite well with taxpayers bearing the cost.

8. Great move, it should never have been sold initially.

9. I agree with this policy from the Government. The government should ensure their basic needs is well supported for the Forces are defending “OUR” safety.

10. The 1996 sale saw 55,000 houses sold for an average of just £27,000 each property.

11. Labour do need to spin this into a positive. For people who’ll see this as ending a horrendously bad value deal, there’ll be plenty saying “£6bn!? Waste of money” without seeing the long-term savings

12. Labour needs a few social media experts and people doign the rounds on new media.

    Otherwise, this type of thing just goes unnoticed and drowned in Tory/Reform BS.

13. Probably bought back from some company that was set up by a tory ~~briber~~ donor.

    The main issue I have had with those 14 years of bleak, bleak tory government was that they created all the problems. The solutions were always obvious but they never did anything about it.

14. The original deal to sell off these properties was an absolute peak example of the Tories just robbing us of our national assets.

    We were paid a low price for the homes in the first place and had to pay a high rent for each. Even then the taxpayer still paid for all maintenance and if too many upgrades were done then the rent could actually go up. There was literally zero value to the taxpayer in that deal, and it should be looked at as criminal.

15. I applaud any measures to nationalize residential real estate but framing spending 6 000 000 000 to save 230 000 000 a year as “save tax payer billions” is a bit misleading.

16. Should never have been sold in the first place, and its a good thing that this is being brought back.

    Naturally, Starmer must have done something wrong, somewhere, and so I expect a week’s worth of negative coverage from all papers.

17. Everything in the military that is run by civvies is shite. Once they’ve sorted the accommodation out they can bring the food back in house and well and get RLC chefs working in the cookhouse.

18. While good, the real disgrace was that these were sold off in the first place.

19. This is the Annington homes thing isn’t it? I remember my Staff Sgt (SSgt) camping outside places back in 2005 or so in order to get a deal.

    This is basically us buying back from them?

    It always was smelly. Now we are buying back at a premium?

20. Sensible move. Not a move they should have had to make as they should never have been told in the first place but sensible moving forward nevertheless. Watch the media develop collective amnesia about this and anything else positive when the next election rolls around.

21. When the government sells off an asset: “government raises billions for taxpayers”.

    When the government later buys that asset back: “government saves taxpayers billions”.

    Is it all just a ruse?

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