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Vicky Spratt
@Victoria_Spratt
Housing & society correspondent @theipaper Orwell Prize finalist 2023, 24 & 25. Author of TENANTS & We Were Promised The Moon. Please send me your stories!
London, England
Joined July 2011
Posts
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    Housing Britain, my new series for @BBCRadio4, is now available to listen to Part 1 is all about housebuilding. Why is it so difficult to build new homes? Is the environment - newts and bats - in the way? Will Labour meet its target? Listen here 📻
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    We have a Housing Secretary who has lived in social housing.
    The Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP @AngelaRayner has been appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities @luhc. She will also be Deputy Prime Minister. #Reshuffle
    The Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. She will also be Deputy Prime Minister.
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    This pool, at Embassy Gardens in Nine Elms, cannot be accessed by those living in the shared ownership part of the development ....
    Swimmers enjoy warm weather in London at the Sky Pool which is believed to be the world’s first transparent pool built between two skyscrapers bbc.in/3fUKLp4
    00:00
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    Taxing landlords on their *checks notes* income…shouldn’t be controversial
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    The new Chancellor has a property empire via his family firm and sued tenants for unpaid rent during the pandemic, the Mirror reported last year
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    Keir Starmer's Cabinet is the most state-educated in history. 87 per cent of Brits went to a state school but this is so rarely reflected in our politics. As someone who went to a comp but is often the only person not privately educated in certain rooms...I'd say this matters.
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    Given the risk modelling, if this isn’t OK why is hormonal contraception? The risk of blood clots is higher with the pill?
    Under-30s in UK to be offered alternative to Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine due to rare blood clot risk bbc.in/3dJpQ7q
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    Who gets social housing? Quick fact check - 81 per cent of new social housing lets go to white British renters. 90 per cent go to UK nationals. Simply not true that immigrants "jump" the social housing queue.
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    The supposed "outing" of Jess Brammar for left leaning views feels like new McCarthyism. There is also inherent hypocrisy here. How could the BBC employ Andrew Neil when he was chairman of the Spectator Group but not someone who dares to have an opinion that is not Conservative?
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    If you rent out 15 homes, managing them is a full-time job. This story highlights the problems with a) enforcing standards in the private rented sector even when legislation exists and b) what happens when we treat being a landlord as a sideline, not a job
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    New investigation @theipaper - homeless families are being housed “temporarily” in former office blocks (like one pictured below) because local councils don’t have enough social housing for permanent homes. This involved visiting some of the worst housing I’ve ever seen - a 🧵
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    House price to income ratios
    Oasis are trending. What else from the '90s should make a comeback?
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    Imagine if we built this sort of social housing across the country?
    New figures show that last year more new council homes were started in London than in any year since the 1970s. This morning @SadiqKhan and I visited brand new council homes built by @lb_southwark. Beautifully designed family-size homes with gardens, funded by @MayorofLondon.
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    Are we "helping young people get on the housing ladder" when we introduce low deposit mortgage products or are we making it easier to get credit to buy unaffordable housing, the price of which has increased beyond wages?