Dagenham fire underlines the scale of building safety crisis

Posted: August 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Fire safety | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

If anyone needed a reminder, Monday morning’s major fire at an apartment block in Dagenham can only increase the urgency of finding a solution to the building safety crisis.

Thankfully all residents are accounted for following a significant search and rescue operation but the pictures of the flames engulfing the building and the stories of residents fleeing their homes were only too familiar. 

Coming nine days before publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, it will have revived some awful memories for the bereaved, survivors and families even as it underlines the scale of the wider crisis that the report will not directly address. 

And it will add to pressure on the government for more action, both to hold those responsible to account and to accelerate the pace of remediation work to make other buildings safe.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good riddance to X

Posted: August 18, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What did it for you? The Musk takeover? 240 characters. The ‘For You’ tab? The re-platforming of fascists? The ‘interview’ with Trump?

For me it was all of the above plus a more general disengagement with what used to be Twitter. Whatever the trigger, more and more people have had enough of X and a tipping point appears to have been reached this week. 

For a freelance journalist and news junkie like me, it’s been a wrench. I first joined in 2008 and Twitter became both a platform that amplified my work and a source of stories and insight. For a while there was a real sense of community and meeting people in person that you only knew from Twitter became a thing. 

All that was over a long time ago as the rancour and the pile-ons took over. As I noticed engagement slipping I became less inclined to tweet myself and more and more only used the app to keep up with the news. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Labour’s first Act on housing 100 years on

Posted: August 13, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Council housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

This month marks the centenary of one of the most important pieces of legislation in housing history. 

The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 – better known as the Wheatley Act – was introduced by the UK’s  first-ever Labour government, a minority administration headed by Ramsay MacDonald that only lasted for 10 months.

A century later, with Keir Starmer only the fourth Labour prime minister to win an overall majority, are there lessons to be learned?

Read the rest of this entry »

Pulling the policy levers

Posted: August 1, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding, New towns, Planning, Right to buy, Social housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing

The last day of term is traditionally a time when nothing much happens and we get set for the holidays to come.

Not so much for Angela Rayner. The deputy prime minister marked the last day in parliament before the summer recess this week with a flurry of announcements, guidance and consultation. 

Most of these – planning reforms including a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), a new towns taskforce, changes to the right to buy – were foreshadowed in the election campaign and early days of the new government. 

However, both her written statement and what she outlined to MPs including some intriguing hints of changes that go well beyond supply and planning. 

And there was also an important piece of context: Rayner said the government now expects to deliver just 200,000 new homes in England in this financial year. That is 100,000 fewer than the annual average needed to meet its target of 1.5 million and will ramp up the pressure in the later years of this parliament.

Read the rest of this entry »