The Week in Housing: respite for LHA claimants

Good afternoon.

All eyes were on Jeremy Hunt this week as he strolled around Downing Street clutching a teal folder, in a matching suit, before delivering his second Autumn Statement.

There was good news as the chancellor seemed to have listened to the sector’s calls to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and increase benefits.

Restoring LHA rates to the 30th percentile from April 2024 will offer some respite for those struggling with soaring rents and the cost of living crisis. But the relief is likely to be short lived.

LHA rates will be frozen again from 2025-26 onwards. This little detail was left out of Mr Hunt’s speech. The briefing document published alongside the Autumn Statement also revealed that the ￡3bn Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme will be?expanded by a further ￡3bn .

As nutrient neutrality rules have become a political battleground of late, the government believes the measures are blocking the development of more than 100,000 homes.

The rules mean house builders must ensure there is no nutrient pollution in areas where there is already some pollution.

To tackle this, Mr Hunt pledged to invest ￡110m over the next two years on “high-quality nutrient-mitigation schemes”, which he said would help to deliver?40,000 homes .

Beyond the government setting out its priorities, the fall-out from a major incident at a tower block in Bristol where hundreds of people were evacuated continued, as Bristol City Council was forced to deny claims ?that it attempted to move residents’ possessions without permission.

Following this, Southern Housing evacuated?60 flats from a tower block in Woking after an investigation raised concerns about the type of concrete used in its construction.

There was a particularly bad case highlighted by the Housing Ombudsman after residents with cancer and chronic asthma were left in homes with damp and mould for nearly two years.

The ombudsman also?issued a record number of complaint-handling failure orders in the last quarter.

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