Browse content similar to 02/03/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Britain is facing a huge housing crisis, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
and nowhere is it more acute than here in London. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
Something like 600,000 Londoners | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
have left this city in the past decade, | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
and that's not because they want to leave, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
it's simply that they can't afford | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
to either buy a place or rent a place. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
It's hardly surprising, | 0:49:22 | 0:49:23 | |
when you know that the average house price now in London | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
is half a million pounds, | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
and the average age of a first-time buyer is now 38 years old. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:33 | |
Now, I'm here in Dagenham to find out a bit more | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
about the crisis in house buying and also in social housing, | 0:49:36 | 0:49:42 | |
because this is something which is affecting Londoners, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
as it is affecting people all over the country. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
So, Debbie, can you tell us, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:50 | |
what's your problem at the moment with your housing? | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
Er, my problem is... | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
is that there's five of us, me and my fiance and my three children. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:59 | |
-Yeah. -And we're all living in a two-bedroom property. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
Really? Wow. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:03 | |
What's it like compared to, say, 10 years ago, 20 years ago? | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
Um... | 0:50:10 | 0:50:12 | |
Well, from when I got my first home in 2001, | 0:50:12 | 0:50:17 | |
-um, I waited for about six months. -Yeah. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:19 | |
And then, obviously, from 2008, there's more overpopulation, | 0:50:19 | 0:50:26 | |
less housing, so everyone's waiting longer. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
I've been waiting since 2008 for a bigger property, | 0:50:29 | 0:50:32 | |
so I would say it's got a lot, lot worse. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:35 | |
Whilst we're not controlling our own borders, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:37 | |
and people have free access to this country, | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
more and more people are going to come to London. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:43 | |
We just simply will never be able to keep up | 0:50:43 | 0:50:46 | |
with the rate that people are coming into the country. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
You'll never build enough houses. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
I'm going up to meet Jennifer, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
who lives on the 16th floor of this block in Dagenham. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:03 | |
She's got three small children, | 0:51:03 | 0:51:07 | |
and you can see the size of this lift - barely take a buggy. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:12 | |
-Jennifer? -Hello. -Hello, hi. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
-Come in. -Oh, great. Thanks very much. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:16 | |
-It's a small lift, isn't it? -Yeah. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
I don't know how you get anything in there. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:21 | |
Um, so... | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
-Jennifer, you're from... You're from Dagenham, aren't you? -Yeah. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:28 | |
And your whole family, isn't that right? | 0:51:28 | 0:51:30 | |
Three generations, in fact. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:32 | |
Cos, like, my uncle still lives in my nan's house. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:36 | |
And then I lived with my mum in Barking and Dagenham | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
since I was a baby. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:41 | |
-My husband's lived in the borough for 30 years. -Yeah. Yeah. -So... | 0:51:41 | 0:51:45 | |
You've been in this flat now for how long? | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
-9½ years. -Yeah. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
Why has it...? Why has it been so difficult? Why is it so tough? | 0:51:50 | 0:51:54 | |
There's just too many people on the housing list, | 0:51:54 | 0:51:58 | |
and you get people that come to the borough, | 0:51:58 | 0:52:01 | |
and they get put on the list | 0:52:01 | 0:52:02 | |
and then they get housed before everyone else. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:05 | |
But do you think you will have to move further out? | 0:52:05 | 0:52:07 | |
-I mean, do you think that's what will...? -Probably. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
If we can't get moved here, on this list, then maybe a different list. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:14 | |
-Yeah, yeah. -Further out. -Yeah. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
GIRLS GIGGLE | 0:52:17 | 0:52:18 | |
But how do you feel about moving away? | 0:52:18 | 0:52:20 | |
It's not going to be nice, | 0:52:20 | 0:52:21 | |
cos obviously friends and family are here. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:24 | |
But, if we have to move further apart, then... | 0:52:24 | 0:52:27 | |
-that's what we'll have to do. -Yeah. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:29 | |
-What's the effect on you, you know? -It does get me down. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
When they're asking... | 0:52:34 | 0:52:35 | |
-VOICE CRACKS: -"Oh, when are we going to get a garden?" Sorry. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
Mm, mm, yeah, yeah, yeah. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:40 | |
No, it's tough. Very tough. SHE SNIFFS | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
These are not isolated cases. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:49 | |
Indeed, it's happening across London | 0:52:49 | 0:52:51 | |
and, indeed, across the whole country, too. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
Our population is going up by over a third of a million a year, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:57 | |
as a direct result of open borders. | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
And we simply can't build houses quickly enough. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
The same knock-on applies for education and for health. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
I blame the government. | 0:53:06 | 0:53:07 | |
The job of government is to plan for provision | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
for housing and public services. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
But with open borders, we don't know, | 0:53:13 | 0:53:15 | |
looking five years ahead, to within the nearest million people, | 0:53:15 | 0:53:19 | |
how many folk will be in our country. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:21 | |
Let's take back control of our borders, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:23 | |
and let's plan for our public services | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
and, crucially, for our houses. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:28 |