Tories unveil house-swap scheme
Updated on 09 November 2009
Social housing tenants will be able to find new homes on the internet in a nationwide house-swap scheme under a Conservative government, a shadow minister has announced.
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said the new service would give Britain a more flexible and mobile population and improve the lives of thousands of families.
At present, most councils and housing associations offer home swaps only within their own areas or those of a few neighbours, said Mr Shapps.
As a result, social housing tenants are unintentionally treated like "second class citizens" and are deterred from moving to a new area for work or family reasons.
One third of social tenants who moved within the last few years remained within one mile of their old home and only one in 10 moved more than 10 miles, Mr Shapps said in a speech to the National Housing Federation.
"If you are a social tenant, you don't have the same opportunities as other renters or home-owners," said Mr Shapps. "The system means that your aspirations are squeezed, your expectations lowered, and your horizons are limited.
"I can announce that a future Conservative government will facilitate a nationwide affordable house-swap programme. We will introduce an Open Database Connectivity platform to ensure that, for the first time ever, every family in social housing will have the chance to relocate by exchanging their home for another one, anywhere in the country."
Mr Shapps said that existing home-swap sites had done "good work", but the largest included no more than 500 social landlords, while the Tory scheme would be universal.
The Government would not construct a rival to existing sites, but would agree a data format to be used for a nationwide scheme, which could be developed by businesses to provide innovations like 360-degree virtual tours of prospective homes and text-message alerts when possible swaps become available.
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