Tendring Topics……..on Line
The Developing Housing Crisis
As house prices fall and estate agents find properties increasingly difficult to sell, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of home buyers (the national press continues to describe them incorrectly as home owners) are finding themselves in a state of negative equity. The debt that they owe on their homes is now greater than the value of those homes on the market. It is an unenviable position, and one that was all-too-common in the early 1990s. We had imagined though that it was a condition that had been banished and would never recur.
Last year at this time the value of homes seemed destined to rise indefinitely, well above the general level of inflation. By the end of the year house inflation had fallen to about, or a little below, that general level. The experts assured us that that was it. The housing market might temporarily flatten but that it would pick up again. There was really no risk of house prices actually falling.
But they have. I reckon that my modest bungalow is probably worth between £10,000 and £20,000 less than it was a year ago. This thought hasn't cost me a solitary night's sleep. My mortgage debt has long since been repaid.
It would have been very different though had I been one of a young couple trying to 'get our feet on the property ladder', who had secured a 100 percent mortgage on the property at its 2006 or 2007 value, and had then incurred further HP debt in order to furnish it!
'Never mind about negative equity', said a 'financial expert' on the BBC's tv 'Breakfast programme' this morning (10th June). The market will pick up again. Keep on making your mortgage repayments and you'll still, as in the best fairy stories, 'live happily ever after'!
The tiny little snag in this re-assurance lies in the 'keep on making your mortgage repayments'. Despite falls in the bank rate in recent months, mortgage repayments have remained static or have even increased. Now the 'experts' predict rises in the bank rate!
Meanwhile, the price of virtually everything else has gone up and is still going up. Motoring costs, energy prices, food prices, rail and airfares have all increased, usually not by just the odd penny but by considerable sums. Incomes (certainly the incomes of wage earners and pensioners) have failed to keep up with inflation.
It doesn't need a crystal ball or a degree in economics to be able to forecast that during the coming months many hard-working and conscientious people will be unable to keep up their mortgage repayments and, as a consequence, will lose their homes. What's more, thanks to the policies of successive governments of both main political parties, it is very unlikely that more than a small minority of them will fall into the safety net of council or housing association accommodation.
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The moving finger………….
'You can't put the clock back!' is one of the responses often made to those who, like me, sometimes deplore the processes of 'modernisation and rationalisation'. This thought is expressed very tellingly in well-known lines from Suffolk poet Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The moving finger writes and, having writ,
Moves on. Not all thy piety, nor all thy wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
Sadly, that is all too true. However, by considering the successes as well as the mistakes that have been made in the past, it is often possible to entice that moving finger to move on to a new clean page on which only the successes will be repeated.
The processes of health-care modernisation in the NHS led to ever larger hospitals. This, in its turn, led to the abolition of the office of Matron. Sisters and Staff Nurses in charge of wards became 'Ward Managers'. Overall control of nursing and medical care began to come within the orbit of lay administrative staff. Cleaning throughout hospitals was undertaken by contract cleaners selected by choosing the commercial firm submitting the lowest tender for carrying out the work.
All of this led, as might have been expected, to disaster. Patients admitted to hospital for the treatment of one illness acquired another, MRSA or C.Difficile, horrible hospital infections that had never been heard of in the 'bad old days' and which were often more lethal than the condition that had brought the patient into hospital in the first place.
It is to the credit of the rulers of the NHS that they looked back into the past and decided to bring back the Matron; the 'Sergeant-major' figure who had once patrolled the wards, encouraging and admonishing sisters and nurses, and being no less firm with the medical staff. Matrons had insisted on absolute cleanliness and absolute adherence to rules introduced for the welfare of patients. Within the hospital's corridors and wards Matron's word was law.
Nowadays, of course, it is realized that no one person could possibly fulfil the role of Matron in an entire hospital. 'Modern Matrons' have the care of a number of wards but they otherwise function exactly as the old-fashioned Matrons did. They are the scourge of second-rate nursing performance, the friend of nurses struggling to cope, the voice of the nursing staff to the hospital management and an example and inspiration for all involved in health care.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In our area the appointment of 'Modern-Matrons' is already proving its value. The Colchester hospitals' target for MRSA in the month of April was no more than one case, and it was just one case that they had. The target for C.Difficile was no more than thirteen cases and they had only seven.
I reckon that there is one further 'backward' step that could be taken to get rid of these modern diseases altogether. Let hospitals once again appoint and manage their own cleaning staff. They would be part of the team caring for the patients, who could be expected to take a personal pride in the wards for which they were responsible, and who would be able to look forward to a secure future in the NHS. Further, I would suggest that the 'Modern matrons', in charge of the wards for which the cleaners will be responsible should be authorised to hire and, occasionally no doubt, to fire them.
That would give the 'moving finger' a brand new page, not unlike some pages of the now-distant past, on which to perform.
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Should Taxis be Exempt?
There can be few Clactonians who are unaware that the busiest part of Pier Avenue, arguably our busiest shopping spot, has been somewhat half-heartedly pedestrianised. Vehicles, except for commercial delivery vehicles and buses picking up or putting down passengers, are prohibited from entering between the hours of 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m.
Should taxis enjoy the same exemption as buses? Naturally enough, taxi drivers think so. They point out that their function is much the same as that of buses and claim that many disabled people are debarred from shopping in that part of Pier Avenue because of the restriction. Hundreds of local people have signed a petition supporting them, though it must be said that not everyone signing a petition thrust in front of them necessarily gives the matter serious thought before doing so.
I'm not totally convinced by the taxi drivers' case. As far as disabled people are concerned, perhaps it might be possible to exempt taxis carrying passengers with a blue badge (the blue badge can be used by disabled passengers in taxis as in private cars); but if they were exempted, why not exempt blue badge users in private cars? Why not, in fact, simply remove the restriction altogether?
It should also be remembered that the ban on cars and taxis is not absolute. All vehicles are permitted in any part of Pier Avenue before 10.00 a.m. and after 4.00 p.m. That gives an hour's shopping time every morning and at least another hour every afternoon. My mobility scooter is restricted to pavement use and is unaffected by the ban. However, looking back over recent months I realize that, from choice, I have done most, if not all, of my shopping in Pier Avenue before 10.00 a.m. This might be inconvenient for some people but could hardly involve real hardship or deprivation.
As a 'motorised pedestrian' I appreciate that more-or-less traffic-free thoroughfare and the ability to cross it in safety. I am sure that many other pedestrians (and even motorists are pedestrians sometimes!) appreciate it too.
I'd leave things as they are.
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A Cash Reward? – for Endangering Future Generations!
I was fascinated by the news that local authorities are to be offered a cash incentive (some might call it a bribe), by the government to permit the disposal by burial of nuclear waste within their area. It is nice to know that local government still has the power to say firmly 'no thank you!' because that, I am quite sure, is what they should do.
I wrote 'disposal' in the paragraph above but it isn't really disposal at all. It is, of course, what is confidently believed to be 'safe storage' until the time, if ever, that a means of actually disposing safely of nuclear waste has been discovered.
I am quite prepared to believe that what is proposed will do no harm to us. It would be most unlikely to harm our children, our grandchildren or even our great grandchildren. Nuclear waste though remains lethal for countless generations ahead.
Imagine how we would feel if we learned that a 'treasure trove' of highly dangerous material had been buried under our homes, having been certified 'as safe' by the very best minds of the age that designed and built Stonehenge; or of the age of William the Conqueror; or Henry VIII; or Lord Nelson and Napoleon Bonaparte; or indeed, that of the very best brains of the first half of the twentieth century.
Yet nuclear waste will remain lethal for a period far, far longer than the few thousand years that separate us from the Stone Age. Who knows what earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear wars or terrorist attacks may take place in that distant future? Any one of those could uncover those buried stores and release their perilous contents. Are we really prepared to endanger the continuance of human life on earth for the sake of present-day comfort and convenience?
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