General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

I was working in the Housing dept. when RTB was introduced.....we had a steady stream of applications and an upsurge of reported repairs to these properties. They thought they could get everything done before it was bought.....big mistake... as soon as it went on RTB we were only responsible to make safe and to make sure heating and hot water was provided.....Tonker said it could be fraudulent, and what was found was the children of the elderly tenants was getting them to apply and would then pay the mortgage, so when they died they had a cheap house, because of the massive discount...The biggest problem was all the best properties were bought and over a period of time the council was left with mostly let's say undesirables....Labour ( Kinnock ) used every chance he could to denigrate Thatcher over the RTB yet when they got into power nothing happened and it's still in force today...We used to see tenants that had bought their house become unemployed and eventually getting evicted then coming back to the council to be rehoused which we had to do if they had a child under sixteen........Rant over...sorry.