Austerity

Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both.

Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 a period of economic recession began in the UK. The austerity programme was initiated in 2010 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. A study published in The BMJ in November 2017 found the Conservative government austerity programme had been linked to approximately 120,000 deaths since 2010.

Cuts to local authority housing budgets are often cited by Council’s as a reason why housing conditions in their stock have fallen. It is also important to note that Thatcher’s administration’s cuts to housing budgets, put in place to incentivise Right to Buy and large scale voluntary stock tranfsers,had left an estimated £19 billion disrepair backlog for social housing by 1997. Dampness is a condition that is both a byproduct of a decades-long ideological battery on social housing, and an agent through which this assault can be advanced.