The Chancellor made £3bn of government guarantees available for the delivery of 30,000 homes in his spring statement. The thinking behind this approach is to provide RPs with access to borrowing at interest rates of below 2% as the lending is in effect ‘de-risked’ by the provision of the government guarantee. While welcomed in the… View Article
Half of RPs surveyed by accounts RSM on behalf of Inside Housing expect the impact of Brexit to have a negative impact upon their business. Inside Housing commissioned research and 143 RPs responded. In broad terms, the perceived impacts are considered to be short term and manageable in the longer term. The report also indicated… View Article
Bricks, mortar, tiles, kitchens and many other items as well as labour are needed to build homes. The construction industry sources many of these items from Europe on a favourable basis and with Brexit, certainty of supply is in jeopardy and if supply can be maintained it has yet to be assessed as to what… View Article
The Labour party introduced its housing green paper – Housing for the Many – in April 2018. This sets out a commitment to building a million ‘genuinely affordable’ homes in England over 10 years which it will expect most to be for social rent. Overall it expects to see 250,000 homes across all tenures each… View Article
Sadiq Khan, the G15 group of large housing associations and London Councils have written to James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to set out their concerns about a ‘no deal’ Brexit or a Brexit deal that is bad for the Capital. They advise that either of these options would impact… View Article
The government has released in its first ever ‘assessments of housing delivery’. This shows that 108 councils are falling short of the 95% delivery of assessed need with 86 required to add more land for housing to local plans as a result. Councils that deliver between 85% and 95% of assessed need must develop an… View Article
Housing associations are warning of significant slowdowns of private and shared ownership sales. Nationally the number of unsold housing association homes has soared to more than 7,000. Notting Hill Genesis has indicated that it has a combined total of 400 unsold homes and is exploring the potential for converting the shared ownership homes into rental… View Article
Over the past year, the housing sector has seen the production of several high-profile reviews and reports, including the Governments Social Housing Green paper, the Shelter commission which called for 3.1 million new social homes and a new regulator. The latest of these, the Affordable Housing Commission is to be chaired by Lord Richard Best…. View Article
Kit Malthouse agreed in a parliamentary debate on fire safety that council tower blocks built in the 1960s and 1970s suffering from structural concerns should make way for low rise, high density developments. Responding to a question in the House of Commons regarding the demolition of two blocks which have structural concerns and whether they… View Article