Posted: October 25, 2019 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Housing finance, Uncategorized | Tags: Public Works Loans Board, Treasury |
Originally posted on October 25 on my blog for Inside Housing.
The row over the hike in the interest rate for borrowing from the Public Works Loans Board (PWLB) is important in itself but it also raises a more fundamental point about social housing investment.
The rate increase imposed by the Treasury earlier this month seems to have been sparked by concern about councils investing in shopping centres rather than homes, which is ironic given that their rationale is to find new revenue streams to compensate for Treasury-imposed austerity.
However, it reinforces the impression that the government still does not trust councils to invest wisely in housing or anything else.
That view goes way back to 1979, of course, and the borrowing and spending controls that the Thatcher government imposed on council housing along with the right to buy.
But it also recalls the way that the government finally introduced self-financing in April 2012 but accompanied it with caps on borrowing and then undermined their business plans by imposing the 1% a year rent cut from April 2016.
Now, just at the point when research by Inside Housing reveals that councils are ready to scale up their housebuilding, the beancounters have struck again.
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Posted: October 15, 2019 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Fire safety, Grenfell Tower, Section 21, Social housing | Tags: Queen's Speech |
Originally posted on October 15 on my blog for Inside Housing.
Granted, the Queen’s Speech was more pre-election political broadcast than genuine legislative programme for the year to come but it still sends some worrying signals about where the government’s priorities lie.
Given Boris Johnson’s Commons majority of -45, Her Majesty’s utterances could be voted down for the first time since 1924 and even if the government somehow stumbles through its own desire for an election only the most uncontroversial bits of it are likely to make any progress.
it’s still good news that the Queen’s Speech proposes building safety standards legislation that would implement the Hackitt review by establishing a new safety framework for high-rise residential buildings.
Although, as Jeremy Corbyn pointed out in his response, progress on blocks with Grenfell-style cladding has been so slow that ‘not a single private block has been made safe under this prime minister’.
While the details of the new system will be debated, few would doubt the central purpose of developing a new system to oversee the whole built environment or the principles of clearer accountability for building owners, designers and constructors, a stronger voice for residents in the system, stronger enforcement and sanctions and a clearer framework for national oversight of construction products.
And if many will doubt that a New Homes Ombudsman will be enough to bring developers into line, the fact that the proposal is tacked on to the new Bill means it can still be improved.
However, with one other small exception, housing was otherwise entirely missing from the Queen’s Speech.
That absence was felt not just in a lack of action on housing and homelessness in general but also in missing specific measures that had been anticipated across different parts of the housing system.
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Posted: October 14, 2019 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Local government, London, Social housing, Temporary accommodation |
Originally posted on October 14 on my blog for Inside Housing.
As fast as homelessness is rising, the costs of homelessness are rising even faster.
The more that central government claims to be providing extra money, the more local authorities seem to be left to pick up the bill.
Those are the conclusions of two reports over the weekend that highlight the scale of the problems at the sharp end of the housing crisis.
The first comes from analysis for the Local Government Association (LGA) that found that that the number of families in bed and breakfast has risen 187% in less than a decade, from 2,450 in 2008/09 to 7,040 in 2017/18.
Shocking though that is, it’s hardly a big surprise given the impact of austerity and welfare ‘reform’ over the same period.
What’s really shocking is the rise in the cost of keeping them in the worst form of temporary accommodation – an incredible 780% from £10.6m in 2009/10 to £93.3m in 2017/18.
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Posted: October 1, 2019 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Permitted development, Shared ownership | Tags: Esther McVey, Robert Jenrick |
Originally published on October 1 on my blog for Inside Housing.
The first two days of the Conservative Party conference make this look like a government that is scraping the barrel for ideas.
Boris Johnson might still have a surprise in store on Wednesday but speeches by housing secretary Robert Jenrick and housing minister Esther McVey were underwhelming at best while chancellor Sajid Javid did not even mention housing in his check-the-small-print bonanza of infrastructure investment.
Jenrick’s big new idea of a right to shared ownership for housing association tenants is not that big and not that new either but it could still have a damaging impact on people who need an affordable home.
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Jules Birch 