Activity

[...] More than 40 per cent of the entire housing benefit bill goes straight into the pockets of private landlords. The money is not reinvested in housing, although this booming market is driven by demand from councils who desperately need the properties because they don't have enough social housin…

Because of the role played by central and local government in estate regeneration, for many academics the population shifts which result from it are no longer known as 'gentrification', but 'state-led gentrification'.

Ed Miliband identified similar issues and criticized developers for 'land banking', the process whereby housebuilders buy up land and fail to build on it as they wait for it to rise in value.