John Cory Mitchell
(1927-1985), Director of Home Ownership, Greater London CouncilSitter in 1 portrait
by Rex Coleman, for Baron Studios
5 x 4 inch film negative, 29 April 1963
NPG x191602
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John Foster (Administrative and Establishment Officer Directorship of Home Ownership GLC)
27 July 2017, 09:20
John Cory Mitchell was appointed as the Director of Home Ownership by the Greater London Council in the 1980s to lead a newly created department to expedite the sale of council houses, primarily under the right to buy scheme but also to promote home ownership under pioneering initiatives such as the Homesteading Scheme, From his commercial background with such companies as Trafalgar House he made a major contribution to speeding up council house sales which were increased from a handful a week to hundreds a week. The essence of this was eliminating the backlog in the valuation of estate houses when he found the the GLC's traditional practice was to value each house on an individual basis - often over a cup of tea - which meant a surveyor could value between three to four properties a day with values varying between a few hundred pounds per property. Mitchell's approach was that with the huge discounts offered under right to buy micro-valuation were pointless and there should be an estate based price with adjustments made for terraced or end of terrace properties. This was initially resisted by the professional valuers but Mitchell managed to win their support and new valuations poured through the system at the rate of hundreds a week to be followed up by a dramatic rise in sales, Unfortunately, John Mitchell found the day to day routines of running a public sector department somewhat irksome and was particularly uncomfortable with the corporate structures under which he was expected to operate. Having made some dramatic innovations he left his post without notice and others were able to reap the benefits of his achievements - not least the thousands of GLC tenants who were able to buy their properties.