Questions that will not go away

Posted: March 31, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Social housing | Tags: | 1 Comment

Originally posted on March 31 as a blog for Inside Housing.

Some time in the long distant past (two weeks ago) we were just emerging from a Budget that signalled better times ahead for affordable housing but left a string of unanswered questions ahead of the Spending Review in the Autumn.

Nest week should have seen the launch of the UK Housing Review 2020 but it appears virtually instead this week in our newly shrunken world as a powerful reminder that other things once mattered.

As ever, it combines a wealth of authoritative statistics about housing with in-depth analysis of all tenures as well as finance, the economy, homelessness, help with housing costs and international comparisons.

What really struck me me is the picture that emerges of the state of our affordable housing and the stark contrast between England and the other UK nations that has developed over the last ten years. This is not new of course but seeing it all brought together is what really hits home.

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Housing in the time of Coronavirus

Posted: March 23, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Coronavirus, Homelessness, Local housing allowance, Private renting | Leave a comment

Originally posted on March 19 as a blog for Inside Housing.

It was only last week but already it seems a lifetime ago since BC – Before Coronavirus

With schools closing, London facing lockdown and, who knows, troops on the streets by the weekend, the impact on housing may seem minor by comparison.

But beyond parochial organisational concerns, the situation is critical for millions of people faced with losing their income or their job and wondering if they will lose their home too – and a matter of life and death for those living and working in care homes, extra care and sheltered housing and those who already have no home.

With the government twisting the arms of mortgage lenders to offer payment holidays, help arrived for home owners first. Now it is promising help for renters with emergency legislation to ban private and social landlords from evicting anyone for three months and no new possession proceedings to be allowed during the crisis.

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A strategy full of contradictions

Posted: March 17, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Permitted development, Planning, Shared ownership, Social housing | Tags: | Leave a comment

Originally posted on March 17 on my blog for Inside Housing.

What was billed as a statement about planning to follow the Budget was actually a declaration of intent about the future of housing – with some glaring contradictions at the heart of it.

An oral statement to the Commons and accompanying policy paper last Thursday from housing secretary Robert Jenrick foreshadow not just the planning and social housing white papers but also a new housing strategy that will be published alongside the Spending Review in the Autumn.

By my reckoning this will be the first housing strategy to be billed as such since David Cameron ‘radical and unashamedly ambitious’ one that pledged to ‘get Britain building’ in 2011.

Given what’s happened since, and the fact that Thursday’s press release promises exactly the same thing, that begs a few questions about what exactly the government has been doing in the meantime.

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Budget boost leaves housing gaps

Posted: March 16, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Council housing, Fire safety, Local housing allowance | Leave a comment

Originally published on March 11 as a blog for Inside Housing.

This is a Budget that does not live up to its own hype and has some glaring omissions but still brings some good news for housing.

There are three big positives: a £12.2bn Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) over the five years from 2021/22; an additional £1bn for a Building Safety Fund to remove dangerous cladding; and £650m to help rough sleepers into permanent accommodation.

Add the reversal of an interest rate hike for borrowing for new council homes, extra funding for housing infrastructure, £1.2bn in consequentials that other UK nations can invest in new homes and an extension of Shared Accommodation Rate exemptions to young rough sleepers and other vulnerable groups, and this looks like one of the best Budgets for housing in the last 10 years.

However, that’s not setting the bar especially high, and you don’t have to look very far below the surface before the questions start to mount up.

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