Forty years ago, there were five million council houses in England, lived in by three out of ten families. Since then the number has declined by two-thirds. The Housing and Planning Bill, which returns to the Commons this week, will make it even more difficult for anyone either to get a council home or to…
The government wants higher-earning council tenants to pay more rent because it’s concerned that hard-working people are “subsidising the lifestyles of those on higher than average incomes”. But have they looked carefully at whose housing is taxpayer-subsidised? And is the answer what they say it is? The UK Housing Review 2016, published this week (see…
Ever since the Spending Review was published in November there has been uncertainty about where this leaves the HCA’s Affordable Homes Programme. In finalising the UK Housing Review, out today, we’ve been disentangling what has happened. Here is a summary of our findings although, of course, some figures may change again as a result of…
Will the chancellor’s bid to halt the decline in owner-occupation work? The Autumn Statement’s extra investment for housing towards the end of this parliament is very good news. We could never hope to address our national supply crisis without government action. But the way it will be configured means a massive boost to homeownership, apparently…
Last year right to buy sales grew to over 12,300, producing nearly £1 billion in receipts. Why can’t councils keep all of this money to build new homes? When right to buy started in 1980 councils could reinvest the receipts in upkeep of their stock, but after 1990 they were forced to ‘set aside’ 75%…
The case for more investment in affordable housing is growing. Two reports launched this week looked at the arguments for a massive programme of affordable house building and both concluded that more investment would significantly reduce the welfare bill. Wednesday’s report from social housing campaign group Shout and the National Federation of Almos warns that…
There’s a strong economic argument for building more low-rent homes to address the massive shortage of housing according to a new report by Capital Economics for SHOUT (Social Housing Under Threat) and the National Federation of ALMOs. In fact there are two good arguments – that the capital investment boosts the economy and helps pay…
London is getting less and less like the rest of the country. Elsewhere houses prices have struggled to reach 2007 levels, but in the capital they’ve already grown by more than a fifth. The price of a one-bedroom home in London would secure a three- or even four-bedroom house almost anywhere else. Because of its…
John Healey MP and John Perry We face a housing and cost of housing crisis greater than at any point since the aftermath of the second world war. Britain is not building enough new homes, and the accommodation that is available is increasingly unaffordable to millions of people. It is a measure of a nation’s…