The Week in Housing: the future of council housing and tributes to Lord Kerslake
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Good afternoon.
Council housing was under the microscope this week, as the Local Government Association ’s (LGA) Annual Conference kicked off with calls for government to adopt?a six-point plant to drive a significant increase in council housebuilding .
James Jamieson, outgoing chair of the LGA, said the plan should include five-year local housing deals to be given to all areas of England that want them by 2025, combining funding from multiple existing national housing programmes into a single pot.
That’s the future, but?Inside Housing?also took a detailed look at one council’s existing plans to up delivery and the model it is using to do so, in an interview with Emma Osmundsen , from council-owned housing developer Sixty Bricks . Ms Osmundsen set out her?plans to deliver the “best council homes in the world” ?and 5,000 homes in 15 years.
Some of the big strategic problems councils are currently facing also got some much-needed scrutiny this week, with research by 英国伦敦政治经济学院 and 第一太平戴维斯 , co-funded by the London Housing Directors’ Group, Trust for London and Capital Letters , finding that?rental prices listed by landlords in the capital are 20% above their level in March 2020 ?– with councils spending more than ￡52m each month on temporary accommodation. London Councils called on ministers to take further measures to meet their housing costs and address homelessness.
There was significant news regionally too this week, with?the West Midlands Combined Authority signing a strategic partnership with house builder Keepmoat ?that saw it pledge to build 4,000 homes in the West Midlands, and generate at least 250 new apprenticeships as a result.
The week also saw scrutiny of quality in council housing, with a new report from the Regulator of Social Housing in England finding that?more than three-quarters of registered providers that breached consumer standards last year were local authorities ?(10 out of 13).
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, it was planning performance that was scrutinised, with the news that?councils in Northern Ireland exceeded the target processing time for major planning decisions by 93% ?in 2022-23, according to data from the annual Northern Ireland planning statistics bulletin.
Delivery was also subject to debate in Scotland, with?Scottish Labour claiming that affordable housing was on a “cliff edge” ?following the publication of statistics around new housebuilding and affordable housing supply from the Scottish government.
Elsewhere this week, there was the publication of an important?new report into the provision of supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people , which called for action from central and local government and social housing providers.
And research by the National Housing Federation found that?demand for social homes in rural areas has grown by more than 10 times the rate of towns and cities , in work released to coincide with Rural Housing Week.
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In terms of delivering new homes quickly, there was a significant court case this week too, with a High Court judge rejecting a?house builder’s challenge to government over a planning decision related to nutrient neutrality rules .
Finally, we would also like to pay?tribute to Lord Kerslake , the chair of housing association Peabody and the former head of the civil service, who died last weekend. Lord Kerslake was a tireless champion for the sector and for social housing (and Peabody delivered more homes for social rent than any landlord in the UK last year). Our thoughts are with his friends and family.
Martin Hilditch, editor, Inside Housing
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