Brixton Hatter
Home is south London mate
There are others with more knowledge on this than me (try searching some of the other threads on here) but experience and recent events show that Local Authorities can do pretty much what they want in terms of moving residents around, especially when an entire estate is going to be knocked down and rebuilt/replaced. It appears common practice to encourage some council tenants to go into the private rented sector whilst making a larger proportion of the new buildings available for private sale. For example, Myatts Fields North is currently being rebuilt which will replace 477 mainly socially-rented houses with 980 dwellings, over 500 of which will be available for private sale. So no overall net increase in social housing, just more private housing to make it financially worthwhile for the council and the developer.
Someone may correct me on the detail, but I think the LA is only obliged to rehouse people in a similar property, not necessarily in the same area or with the exact same specification. The problem with this is that it destroys long-standing communities, potentially cutting off elderly people from their friends and neighbours (who may have helped them with stuff like shopping, DIY, odd jobs etc), splitting up family groups (who may have helped each other with babysitting, looking after kids etc) - and often replaces these communities with transient, buy-to-let populations who may be less interested in engaging with other local people.
A belated welcome to the Boards, by the way.
) 
