A thought provoking article by Jack Simpson in Inside Housing explores financial stress points, competition between councils and housing associations and development resources: https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-challenges-for-housing-association-development-in-2019-59625
Headlines from the report are: “We believe that there are many positive proposals set out in the green paper to improve standards including: a stronger focus on ensuring all landlords are meeting the regulator’s consumer standards a more consistent approach to regulating local authority and housing association landlords the removal of the ‘democratic filter’ to… View Article
Key Budget measures for housing: £500m in housing infrastructure fund to unlock a further 650,000 homes The next wave of strategic partnerships with nine housing associations which will deliver 13,000 homes British business bank guarantees for SME house builders ’Simplification’ of process to convert commercial properties to new homes Providing funding to empower 500 neighbourhoods… View Article
The Mayor of London today launched a multi-million pound fund aimed at boosting the housing and planning teams in the capital’s local authorities. Central Government cuts have seen council budgets for planning and development fall by 50% in London over the last eight years. This has served to undermine plans to build new council homes…. View Article
District councils have urged the Government to extend the time limit for spending Right to Buy receipts for both existing and future receipts. Under the current system, local authorities have five years to spend their existing Right to Buy receipts. However, they still only have three years in which to spend future receipts. The District… View Article
The Prime Minister has cleared the way for a surge in council house building by announcing plans to lift the housing borrowing cap on councils. It means local authorities will be able to take on big loans against the value of their housing stock to fund ambitious council house building plans. The amount of extra… View Article
Building on the Labour party’s Green paper ‘Housing for the Many’ (April 2018) announcements at the Labour Conference included a pledge to “end the housing crisis” with a raft of measures including handing more power to private tenants and offering homeless people the chance of a first home. Shadow housing secretary John Healeyunveiled the plans… View Article
Community-led groups are being invited to bid for a share of £163m housing fund to help deliver new affordable housing schemes. Phase Two of the Community Housing Fund has now opened, offering capital grants to fund the cost of buying land and building community-led housing schemes. ‘Community-led housing is about giving local people the lead… View Article
Due to upheaval within the Cabinet and ministerial resignations the Prime Minister has had to shuffle the political pack once again. The impact of this is yet another change of housing minister with Dominic Raab (pictured left) being elevated to Brexit Secretary a mere 181 days into his role as Housing Minister. The new appointee,… View Article
The Compulsory Purchase Association annual conference last week provided an opportunity to brush up on current issues and to network. The event was somewhat muted this year, but with a strong focus on the need for the sector to get better at negotiating early settlements and improve communication with people affected by CPOs. Proposals are… View Article