Ignoring the obvious

Posted: January 15, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Economics, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Local government, Social housing | Leave a comment

Without local authorities, England has only seen more than 200,000 housing starts three times since the war. So why is council housing being ignored now?

As John Perry argues in Inside Housing, councils are currently building around 3,000 homes a year but they could build 15,000 if they were given more freedom to borrow. ‘A government that is desperate for house building shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ he says.

Desperate is exactly the right word for our current performance on housebuilding: just 105,000 starts in England in 2011/12, down from a miserable 112,000 in 2010/11 and less than half the level needed to meet demand and prevent an ever-increasing spiral of rising prices and rents.

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Nudging the nimbys

Posted: January 10, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning | 5 Comments

The minister introduces a ‘powerful new incentive’ for local communities to approve new homes. Sound familiar?

I am of course not talking about planning minister Nick Boles and his scheme to give local communities a share of the community infrastructure levy but former housing minister Grant Shapps and the new homes bonus.

As quickly became clear, this wasn’t a bonus and it didn’t have much to do with new homes either. It was more a mechanism for creating winners and losers (affluent areas and deprived ones). In the year before the first payments were made, there were a miserable 113,000 housing starts in England. In the year after, there were 105,000.

So what’s the difference between the Shapps Sweeteners and the Boles Bungs? The planning minister could quite reasonably point out that his cash will get closer to local communities because it will go to parish and town councils whereas the bonus goes to local authorities. In theory at least that should cut out the middle man and make the bribe more persuasive.

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10 things about 2012 – part 2

Posted: December 31, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing market, Social housing | Leave a comment

The conclusion of my two-part review of the issues and people I was blogging about in 2012 looks at bullding, owning and affording homes – and a year of anniversaries.

6) Housebuilding: talking a good game

If you measure the importance of an issue by its media profile, 2012 was certainly the year of housebuilding. The first half of the year saw momentum building behind the idea that investment in new homes would be good for the economy as well as people who need a roof over their heads. Support came from economists and politicians (increasingly from the Lib Dem side of the coalition) and even the director-general of the DCLG was talking about a ‘decade of housebuilding’ at the CIH conference in June. Hopes were genuinely high that the case for housing was winning support at the highest levels of government and David Cameron’s party conference speech in October was heavy on anti-nimby rhetotric.

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After the fall

Posted: November 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Social housing | Leave a comment

A year ago this week some devastating statistics were published that undermined everything that the government was saying in its housing strategy. Has anything changed 12 months on?

The 97 per cent fall in starts of affordable homes (to just 454 in the whole of England) between April to September 2010 and the same six months in 2011 was published the day after David Cameron and Grant Shapps launched a strategy they claimed was ‘radical and unashamedly ambitious’. Whether the timing was coincidence, cock-up or conspiracy it caused acute embarrassment for the government.

After that, the only way was up. Starts duly picked up in the second half of the year but the acid test was always going to be the number of starts a year later.

Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Running a red light

Posted: November 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing market | Leave a comment

Halfway through the parliament and one year in to the housing strategy and the traffic lights seem to be taking for ever to change from red to green for housing.

It also looks like a good time to judge the record of this government and a time to stand back and admit that whoever had been in charge over the last two and a half years would have struggled against the grim backdrop of austerity.

Those are points well made by the CIH, NHF and Shelter in their third Housing Report. The good news is that ministers are at last making the right noises about the positive effects of housing investment but, as the report says, pledges and policies are not proof of progress.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Where’s the evidence on section 106?

Posted: November 7, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Planning | Leave a comment

The government’s plans on section 106 and affordable housing came under fire from all sides of both houses of parliament this week – and no wonder.

In the Commons, communities secretary Eric Pickles said the Growth and Infrastructure Bill would cut red tape by allowing the renegotiation of ‘economically unrealistic’ section 106 agreements. ‘In our sights particularly are affordable housing requirements that were negotiated at the height of Labour’s unsustainable housing boom. Now that the Brown bubble has burst, bringing us back to reality with a bump, we recognise that 75,000 homes, with planning permission, are lying unbuilt.’

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Supply and demand

Posted: November 1, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Private renting | Leave a comment

There is good news, bad news and really bad news in figures out today on housing supply in England.

The good news first: net additional housing supply rose 11 per cent in 2011/12 to 134,900 in 2011. That follows three consecutive annual falls in the wake of the credit crunch and represents a return to the level seen in the early 2000s. Net additional supply is the government’s preferred measure since it includes not just new build homes but gains and losses from demolitions and conversions of buildings from one use to another too.

Net additional housing supply in England (source: DCLG)

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Home truths

Posted: October 22, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Private renting | Leave a comment

‘We’re not in any way complacent,’ Mark Prisk told the Today programme this morning – having spent his interview being just that.

It’s the first time I’ve caught a media appearance by the successor to Grant Shapps, who was so ever-present in the radio and TV studios that he was dubbed the minister for Daybreak. Prisk is not on twitter either so other than a few brief interviews and a few blogs he is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Backyard blues

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning | Leave a comment

It’s great news that David Cameron used his conference speech to criticise nimbys and call for more homes but does he really get the problem?

In the week that has seen the launch of the pan-housing Homes for Britaincampaign it was significant that the prime minister went beyond the odd dutiful word in his leader’s speech at Birmingham. The bit that really struck me was this:

‘There are those who say “yes of course we need more housing”…but “no” to every development – and not in my backyard.
 Look – it’s OK for my generation. Many of us have got on the ladder.
 But you know the average age that someone buys their first home today, without any help for their parents? 
33 years old. We are the party of home ownership – we cannot let this carry on.
’

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Phoning home

Posted: October 1, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding | Leave a comment

It’s great to see Ed Balls putting his – or rather mobile phone companies’ – money where his mouth is on housing but his speech still begs some big questions.

It’s good news too see housing finally making the headlines at the start of a Labour party conference rather than becoming a footnote before they sing The Red Flag at the end.

Media briefing ahead of the speech by the shadow chancellor was all about housing and his call for the £3-4 billion proceeds of the sale of 4G mobile phone licenses to be spent on 100,000 affordable homes and a new stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers. The idea seemed to go down pretty well with delegates judging from the applause in the hall.

Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

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