Rough justice
Posted: June 9, 2014 Filed under: Homelessness, Social media | Tags: Twitter 3 CommentsWhy did that picture of anti-homeless spikes get such prominence on Twitter and in the media over the weekend?
Here is the tweet from Anglican priest Sally Hitchiner that sparked an angry wave of Twitter reaction and follow-up stories in the national press.
What she called studs, but look to many other people like spikes, do indeed send a very negative message. Many people have noted the resemblance to anti-pigeon measures on London buildings. And Katharine Sacks-Jones of Crisis points out that there are just one part of a rough tale for rough sleepers. ‘We will never end homelessness with studs in the pavement – only by tackling the root causes,’ she points out.
Yet for all those powerful arguments, anti-homeless urban design is sadly not new or unusual. There have been previous furores in Britain, notably involving Tesco, and there are much worse examples in other cities around the world.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Zero sums
Posted: June 4, 2014 Filed under: Energy efficiency, Environment, Housebuilding | Tags: zero carbon 1 CommentMinisters once promised that Britain would lead the world on zero carbon homes. Do we now just lead the world in hot air?
The 2016 target for all new homes to be zero carbon seemed genuinely revolutionary when Gordon Brown and housing minister Yvette Cooper first announced it in 2006. Questions about practicalities and costs were brushed aside as they argued that the target would spark the mass adoption of new technologies, drive down costs and even open up vast new export markets for British firms. As Cooper put it at the time:
‘In 10 years, all new homes should be built at a zero carbon rating. No other country has set that sort of timetable or ambition but I believe that we need to do it to drive the environmental technologies of the future and ensure that we are building the homes of the future.’
Eight years, and six housing ministers, later and today’s Queen’s Speech promises that ‘legislation will allow for the creation of an allowable solutions scheme to enable all new homes to be built to a zero carbon standard’. So far, so good. The Liberal Democrats even reached back to the days of Brown and Cooper with their claim on Monday of ‘Britain to lead world on zero carbon homes’. Read the rest of this entry »
In our blood
Posted: May 29, 2014 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market 1 CommentOn a first glance at today’s new figures, the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme is failing to live up to the fears of its critics or the hopes of ministers.
The figures released by the Treasury show 7,313 sales in the first six months of the scheme. Of these, 72 per cent were for homes valued below £250,000 and 80 per cent were to first-time buyers.
Those completions account for around 1.3 per cent of mortgages over the six months so it’s hard to see how the Help to Buy 2 mortgage guarantee (HTB2) on its own can have contributed much to rising property prices.
Tax year
Posted: May 28, 2014 Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit Leave a commentA year on and the evidence is stacking up about the impact of the bedroom tax.
Over and over again we’ve heard from ministers that tenants affected by what they call the removal of the spare room subsidy have choices: they can downsize; or they can take in a lodger; or they can get a job. And the safety net of discretionary housing payments (DHPs) is there to help the most vulnerable.
Over and over again, landlords, tenants and others have argued that it’s not so simple: smaller homes are just not available; jobs are not so easy to come by and may be impossible for many tenants with disabilities; few will want to take a stranger into their home; and DHPs are woefully inadequate to meet the scale of need.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Doubts about Dave
Posted: May 20, 2014 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housebuilding, Housing market, Planning | Tags: David Cameron Leave a commentHow do David Cameron’s claims this morning about home ownership and new housing in his own constituency measure up to scrutiny?
It’s a measure of the growing political importance of housing took top billing in his Today programme interview sandwiched between reaction to the conviction of Abu Hamza and Britain’s relationship with Europe. Listen again here from about 1:30 in.
The interview was notable for me for two things: first an unequivocal claim to the old Tory mantle of the ‘property owning democracy’; and second a denial that Tory councils are nimbys made with specific reference to West Oxfordshire (Cameron’s Witney constituency has the same boundaries).
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Eric’s ladder
Posted: May 15, 2014 Filed under: Buy to let, Help to Buy, Housebuilding, Mortgages | Tags: Eric Pickles, Kris Hopkins 1 CommentThe boast from ministers is that Help to Buy really is getting Britain building – but is it enough?
The narrative according to Eric Pickles is that the coalition ‘inherited a situation where builders couldn’t build, buyers couldn’t buy and lenders wouldn’t lend’. Now, thanks to Help to Buy and the reinvigorated Right to Buy, ‘we’re ensuring that anyone who works hard and wants to get on the property ladder will be able to do so’.
Not to be outdone, housing minister Kris Hopkins said the housebuilding figures for the March quarter of 2014 were the result of a ‘massive government effort’ and even took credit for a 23-year high in council house building. And the DCLG press release comes complete with a statement from Stewart Baseley of the Home Builders Federation that the extension of Help to Buy 1 ‘is allowing the industry to plan ahead, rebuild capacity lost in the downturn and deliver the homes the country needs’.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Rachman, rogues and renting
Posted: May 14, 2014 Filed under: History, Legal, Private renting | Tags: Rachman, Rachmanism 6 CommentsScandals hit private renting. With an election in the offing, the Labour opposition pledges help for tenants. There are definite parallels between now and the 1960s.
Everyone (especially those who oppose the party’s current modest reform plans) thinks they knows what happened in the wake of Rachmanism but the truth is far more complicated and so are the lessons for the future.
My interest in the period was first caught by a 2012 Radio 4 documentary called The Real Rachman – the Lord of the Slums. I thought I knew about Rachmanism but the programme told a much more nuanced and mysterious story that I blogged about shortly afterwards.
That blog prompted an email from Professor David Nelken, whose 1983 book on the aftermath of Rachmanism has just been reissued. The Limits of the Legal Process is a classic study of the sociology of the law that should be required reading for anyone involved in the current debates about regulating renting (or indeed regulating anything). The book is subtitled ‘a study of landlords, law and crime’ and it tells the story of the response to Rachmanism, first by the politicians with legislation, then by landlords with evasion and then by local authorities and the courts with implementation and enforcement.
Discretion and discrimination
Posted: May 9, 2014 Filed under: Housing benefit, Local government, Welfare state 3 CommentsShocking new figures published by Inside Housing reveal yet again the holes in the safety net provided by discretionary housing payments (DHPs).
On one level it beggars belief that in the last financial year councils turned down 70,000 requests for help from tenants facing cuts in their housing benefit and returned £9 million of DHP funding to central government.
On another, it’s no surprise that a system devolved to local authorities facing their own budget cuts has experienced problems or that one based on local discretion has varied so much between different areas.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Jules Birch 