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
The mayor of London has launched a £38m fund for community-led housing as part of his plan to address the capital’s housing crisis. The new London Community Housing Fund is expected to create 500 community-led homes by 2023 and will provide grants or loans for building, development and delivery. The funding will also help with… View Article
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