Posted: August 3, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: London, Right to buy, Temporary accommodation | Tags: Dispossession, Havering |
Originally published as a column for Inside Housing on August 3.
If the Right to Buy has a birthplace it’s a terraced house at 39 Amersham Road in Harold Hill, near Romford in Essex.
True, the sale was the 12,000th rather than the first and 11 August, 1980 was not the actual birth date of the policy either.
However, both have come to symbolise the Right to Buy because this was the place and that was the day that Margaret Thatcher came for tea.
The former prime minister joined the Patterson family, who had bought their home for £8,315 after 18 years as tenants of the Greater London Council (GLC).
Two things came together to remind me of that photo opportunity this week: first, archive footage used in the film Dispossession (full review to follow soon); and second a good investigation by the local paper of hidden homelessness in the area.
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Posted: July 11, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing benefit, LHA cap, Right to buy, Social housing, Supported housing |
Originally published on July 11 as a column for Inside Housing.
If we need to ‘invest in good work’ what about good homes?
Theresa May was speaking at the launch of the Taylor review of the gig economy on Tuesday exactly a year after she became prime minister.
In the wake of her failed election gamble, she needs non-Tory support to address the challenges identified in the report.
And her plea to the other parties to ‘come forward with your own views and ideas about how we can tackle these challenges as a country’ is being interpreted as being about more than just the labour market.
So if the challenge of precarious work requires cross-party co-operation what about that of precarious housing?
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Posted: May 14, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Council housing, Right to buy | Tags: General Election 2017 |
The Tory ‘council house revolution’ trailed in all today’s papers begs all sorts of questions that I’ll be blogging about soon (now up here).
In TV interviews today we’ve learned that there is no new money, just the £1.4bn for affordable housing promised in the 2016 Autumn Statement.
Conservative spokespeople refused to say how many homes were involved but the Autumn Statement said 40,000.
If that is welcome news it hardly qualifies as a ‘revolution’. However, the policy includes other details that could prove to be more significant in the longer term.
Given that all today’s reports are based on a Conservative Party press release that I can’t find anywhere online, here it is:
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Posted: April 28, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Private renting, Right to buy, Social housing |
Originally published on April 28 on my blog for Inside Housing.
The housing crisis could persist ‘for decades to come’ unless the government shows more urgency and ambition on supply.
That’s the verdict* from an all-party committee of MPs on Friday in one of a series of reports due to be rushed out in the next few days as Westminster clears the decks for the election.
The Public Accounts Committee says:
‘
We are highly concerned by this lack of urgency and ambition, most of all in view of the rising costs, both human and financial, of homelessness. Not only does becoming homeless people represent a terrible blight on people’s lives, it also places additional strain on public spending: councils’ spending on temporary accommodation amounted to £840 million in 2015–16, a real-terms rise of nearly half (46%) in just five years.’
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Posted: April 18, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Right to buy | Tags: Election 2017 |
Originally published on April 18 on my blog for Inside Housing.
Here are some quick thoughts on what the snap General Election might mean for housing.
First, what about the campaign? Labour and Jeremy Corbyn will make a housing a big part of their alternative vision for Britain.
There will be lots about council and social housing and lots to appeal to private renters. Housing will be more prominent in the campaign of one of the two major parties than it has been for years.
But will any of that matter? Theresa May and the Conservatives will not need to say much about housing because their campaign will be all about Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn.
Housing won’t matter much to any of the other parties either as the Lib Dems try to win back seats by appealing to Remainers and the SNP and Plaid use the looming Tory apocalypse in England to win votes in Scotland and Wales.
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Posted: March 13, 2017 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Right to buy, Social housing, Wales |
Originally published on March 13 on my blog for Inside Housing.
Wales is set to join Scotland in consigning the Right to Buy to history.
Readers in that country east of Offa’s Dyke and south of Hadrian’s Wall may want to look away as the Welsh Government introduces a bill into the National Assembly on Monday to abolish the Right to Buy, Right to Acquire and Preserved Right to Buy.
The aim is to protect social housing from further reduction and encourage the development of new social rented homes.
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Posted: November 8, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Housing associations, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Starter homes | Tags: Gavin Barwell, Housing and Planning Act, Sajid Javid |
Originally published on November 8 on my blog for Inside Housing
There are no guarantees but the penny has dropped at the DCLG that policies that were written on the back of a fag packet need lots more work. Six months after the Housing and Planning Act received Royal Assent, we are still waiting for the key details. Could it be that the new ministers have realised that some of what their predecessors did was manifestly without reason too?
Things are not remotely clear with the Housing and Planning Act but perhaps the fact that I’m even able to write that six months after it became law is good news of a sort. It remains to be seen how much will be changed or watered down but the new ministerial team at the DCLG clearly do not share the gung-ho assumptions of their predecessors and the government as a whole has bigger things on its mind. Watch the first five minutes or so of yesterday’s session at the Communities and Local Government Committee to see what I mean.
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