It’s time to look again at revenue support for new build
Everyone agrees we need to build more homes for social rent and last year the rules were changed so that both Homes England and the London Mayor can help finance them via capital grant. The problem is that the sheer scale of output required – as many as 90,000 new homes per year – means […]
The loss of social homes must be stemmed
According to Crisis, to tackle new housing needs and address the backlog of overcrowding, sharing and unsatisfactory living conditions, we need to build 90,000 social rented homes per year in England. Yet currently we struggle to produce 5,000. This means that, far from meeting new needs, we’re not even building enough to replace the social […]
UK social housing performance over the last 30 years
An article to celebrate 30 years of the magazine Social Housing. Social Housing magazine was a child of its time. Created in 1988 just as housing associations’ access to private finance was formalised, it was there both to report on what was happening and to provide guidance to everyone involved. It was a time of […]
How do we build 100,000 social rented homes each year?
Crisis and the National Housing Federation have just published a new report showing that 100,000 social homes are needed across Great Britain. With all but 10,000 of those needed in England, the biggest challenge will be to the Westminster government and will require a step-change in how it delivers housing. The high numbers reflect the […]
The mess of government intervention in housing
Which housing tenure receives most subsidy? Inside Housing readers know that the question isn’t a simple one and that the obvious answer – social housing – isn’t necessarily correct. The quest for a full analysis has just been boosted by housing finance experts Peter Williams and Steve Wilcox, whose report Dreams and Reality looks not […]
Lifting the HRA borrowing cap should come with accounting changes
Theresa May’s announcement that borrowing caps on council housing investment will be removed was a big step in the right direction, and the issuing of draft regulations appears to confirm that the caps will be lifted at the end of this month. With reports of a Treasury fight-back, the concern was that restrictions could have […]
Will housing receive a ‘red tape bonus’ from Brexit?
Leaving the European Union is supposed to free us from red tape. Depending whether Brexit is hard or soft, it could give Britain more freedom to set its own rules. Will this be of any benefit to the housing sector? Let’s look at some of the possible changes. EU procurement rules are one example. Ending […]
Why councils don’t use their borrowing capacity
Before parliament went off for its summer holidays, the housing minister Kit Malthouse said he was ‘at a loss’ to understand why councils don’t use their full borrowing capacity to build new homes. Always willing to help out a new minister, I’ll offer a quick guide to why this apparently lamentable situation has come about.
Encouraging messages, now Labour must work on the detail
Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s affordable housing green paper last Thursday, promising one million new homes over ten years of which a significant number would be for social rent. The ambition was clear: funding will be restored to the level when Labour last held office, and councils will once again become “major deliverers” of social housing. […]
Government policy needs to return to building homes to let at modest rents
As the latest UK Housing Review is published, co-author John Perry describes how government priorities have shifted from direct investment in affordable housing to personal subsidy through housing benefit. If asked about how the government spends money on housing, most people would probably say they build council houses – but of course they’d be wrong. […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on