The Week in Housing: scale of remediation laid bare and children in temporary accommodation inquiry begins

Good afternoon.

The week started with a sobering reminder of the remediation challenge facing the sector. The spending watchdog called on the government to set milestones for cladding remediation as it revealed that works will not be complete until at least 2035 and will cost ￡16.6bn.

The National Audit Office believes the milestones are needed to ensure the 2035 estimated end target can be met, and?pointed out where there are still gaps in data collection, pace and transparency, and funding.

Following this report, Inside Housing revealed that Camden Council had successfully defended an improvement notice it made against a building owner to tackle unsafe cladding.

At the same time, plans have been submitted to redevelop the site of a tower block owned by Clarion that was evacuated due to safety concerns.

These concerns were not cladding related, however, and were instead due to the large panel system (LPS) style of construction – where large slabs of prefabricated concrete are bolted together.

This system became notorious following the Ronan Point disaster, an east London tower block which partially collapsed in the 1960s.

The first evidence session into the issue of children living in temporary accommodation heard how landlords are switching their homes to this tenure because they can earn higher rents.

MPs on the cross-party Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee were told that of the more than 150,000 children currently living in temporary accommodation in England, over 60% of households with children have been in it for two years or more.

The inquiry continues as one London council revealed it?will no longer store people’s belongings while they are in temporary accommodation, unless in “exceptional” circumstances.

One way the government could alleviate this crisis would be to increase Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which set the amount of housing benefit private renters can receive.

This would allow more households to afford their rent in the private rented sector, meaning they would be less at risk of homelessness and in need of temporary accommodation.

The Labour government has come under criticism from leading homelessness charities over its?“extremely disappointing” failure to unfreeze this housing benefit in last week’s Budget.

It estimates that a freeze next year will leave private renters who get housing benefits ￡243 worse off per year on average.

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