Give Us A Chance?

Whilst I understand (as opposed to agree) with the housing allocation policies and why they are the way they are, I cannot see why the SIC/Hjaltland can't have a more sensible approach to management of the housing stock.

When new schemes are built, why not offer the places to existing tenants with good records of payment, who have looked after their properties, and who have been on the waiting list for an area for years, and have a family of appropriate size to "fit" the property.

Then, offer the older, generally more remote properties to those in dire straits. It may not sound very PC, but locations and room numbers are not so important for those without jobs, who one would expect will be grateful for anything and can, hopefully, start working their own way up the ladder.

Ok, I admit I was wrong on an overall development plan but to be fair those plans have emerged(2012) a year or two after I made a personal enquiry about where I could build a house in Lerwick. 

 

And I must say that at that time I recieved nothing but total vagueness with no help at all.

 

Yes, the SIC have identified land but why are they not doing more to help the issue?.  What they could be doing is bringing themselves, the land owners and people who would like to build a house in Lerwick together to start developing an area. 

 

That  is what I would like to see and that to me would be a real development plan.

Kavi, these plans have been worked on for a number of years and published in various forms. Yes, there is a plan for Lerwick, it has a section of its own. The documents I found so quickly are a REAL plan. If you want to develop land, the help is there, you need to get off your butt and get backing. As for single house sites, not really in the interest of the LDP. The plan is there it to stop developers building what they want, where they want, is also allows for SDPs to be put in place.

I would say to you that you have not really tried, you find a subject on here and comment without searching.

You based your answer on a search you did nearly 4 years ago.

Also, you have to, YOURSELF identify a plot and apply, not expect a council to tell you.

The LDP is in place to make sure there is enough housing stock for the next few years and may not offer what YOU want when YOU want it.

You need to start getting up to speed with current legislation as well as stuff that has been around for more that 2 years.

 

 

When new schemes are built, why not offer the places to existing tenants with good records of payment, who have looked after their properties, and who have been on the waiting list for an area for years, and have a family of appropriate size to "fit" the property.

You would have to establish first if this is within the gift of the authorities at the local level. You may find that policies are handed down from higher authorities and in some cases, little can be done. The Military Covernant is one document that changes housing policy as far as allocations are concened. This policy means that an ex-service person can apply anywhere without any local links and have their application waiting time back dated to the start of their service entry. There are also those who are taxed for additional rooms they are deemed to have too many of and they fall into cat B or equivalent. The allocations from the bands are in percentages, say cat A would receive 45% of the available allocations, B 30%, C 20% and D 5%. Cat A being homeless or those deemed at risk of homelessness with young children, these could be a parent escaping a violent relationship to cat D, those who are not in any desperate need and can afford to go elswhere unless of course their circumstances change. These are not exact, as they will vary across authorities.

Before folk spout the slester they do, most logical folk will look into the subject, this prevents the current victimisation of folk who fall into a social band as claimants.

When new schemes are built, why not offer the places to existing tenants with good records of payment, who have looked after their properties, and who have been on the waiting list for an area for years, and have a family of appropriate size to "fit" the property.

 

Then, offer the older, generally more remote properties to those in dire straits. It may not sound very PC, but locations and room numbers are not so important for those without jobs, who one would expect will be grateful for anything and can, hopefully, start working their own way up the ladder.

That's a fairly sensible approach I reckon, only problem I can see with it is that they're not building enough social housing for that policy to make much of a dent. There could also be the reverse happening over time where you end up with newer developments housing tenants who do pay up on time and look after the property and the older developments become full of people who don't have the ability to pay rent and don't look after them.