Shelter Wants All-Parties Commitment To 90,000 Social Rent Homes A Year

Shelter wants an all-parties election manifesto commitment to delivering at least 90,000 social rent homes a year over the next parliament, as the charity releases new stats showing as many as nine in ten private renters now face years on waiting lists. The charity’s analysis of the latest government data shows there were nearly 500,000 privately renting households on council waiting lists last year, but fewer than 43,000 private renters moved into a social rent home during that same period. And the true scale of need among private renters is probably far greater than these figures suggest, with many cutting back on food or skipping meals completely. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/shelter-wants-all-parties-commitment-to-90000-social-rent-homes-a-year/

Labour To Build 155,000 Social Rented Homes A Year

A motion to the Labour Party conference has committed the party to a policy of building 155,000 social rented council homes a year – with immediate effect when in Government. And conference could also back councils having the powers and resources to take housing associations under direct council control. The housebuilding motion references Shelter’s ‘A Vision for Social Housing’ report identifying a need for 3.1 million new social rented homes over the next 20 years – an average of 155,000 per year. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/motion-commits-labour-to-building-155000-social-rented-homes-a-year/

Social Rented Housing – Parliamentary Written Answer

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has for rent convergence in the social housing sector.

Kit Malthouse: For more than a decade, registered providers of social housing were able to increase the rent on Social Rent properties by an additional £2 per week if the rent was below the 'formula' level. This mechanism was phased out in 2015 and the Government has no plans to reinstate it, as this would be likely to result in additional costs to tenants and taxpayers.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2019-07-08/274562

Social Rented Housing: Construction – Parliamentary Written Answer

Matt Western: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the oral contribution of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington of 13 June 2019, Official Report, column 860, whether his Department plans to adopt the target to build 155,000 social rented homes a year with at least 100,000 being council homes.

Kit Malthouse: We do not publish yearly targets but deliver flexibly throughout the years of the programme to achieve our overall target and hold Homes England and the GLA to account for delivery.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2019-07-04/273481

LGA: Two-Decade Social Home Build Could Have Saved Renters Billions

Building 100,000 government-funded social rent homes a year over the past two decades would have cut ‘billions’ from the housing benefit bill, new analysis reveals. The Local Government Association (LGA) said its new research ‘provides evidence’ for why the government should use the Spending Review to work with councils to ensure that the genuine renaissance in council housebuilding needed to ‘increase housing supply’, ‘boost affordability’ and ‘reduce homelessness’, is a success. According to reports, the LGA have also said that a boost in social housing over the last twenty years would have provided higher disposable income for tenants and generated ‘significant economic returns’. Read more on the LGA website.

https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/building-social-housing-over-20-years-could-have-saved-renters-ps18-billion

Easing The Housing Headache

No doubt about it, housing is a headache for many young people today. The dramatic fall in the home ownership rates of the under-35s often produces the sharpest pangs for politicians. But there are other sources of pain as well. Just as ownership rates have collapsed, so too has the share of young people that live in social rented homes (from 22 per cent in 1981 to just 10 per cent in 2018). As a result more than one in three young families live in the private rented sector today, the least secure and lowest quality tenure of all. Read more on the Resolution Foundation website.

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/easing-the-housing-headache-what-the-chancellor-should-do-in-next-weeks-budget/

London Needs 40,000 New Social Rented Homes A Year

London Tenants Federation (LTF) is calling for 40,000 new social rented homes to be built each year in London for the next 10 years to address the city’s housing crisis. In a statement, A positive future for social housing in London, published ahead of the Social Housing Green Paper, LTF call for the government to make social housing central to a radical shift in housing policy. Since 2005 average delivery rates for social rented housing in London have been below a tenth of what is needed. LTF, an alliance of democratic tenants and residents’ organisations in the capital, is calling on the government to provide sufficient grant funding, ringfenced for social housing, to address this shortfall within the next 10 years. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/london-needs-40000-new-social-rented-homes-a-year/

The Fall And Rise Of Social Rent

In the 12 months to April 2011, at the height of the recession, a shade below 40,000 new socially rented homes were built in England. By April 2017 this figure had collapsed, undergoing an 85% fall to a negligible 5,900 units – 2.7% of overall housing supply and the lowest figure since records began. But this, it appears, may be a nadir. Social rented housing is making a comeback. The next set of government funding programmes – in London and the rest of England – will include homes for social rented housing, supported by grant rates of up to £100,000 of public money per unit. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ilEjBZJJdQAJ:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/the-fall-and-rise-of-social-rent-57184+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss

Single Council Snapshot Shows 28 Bids For Every ‘Affordable’ Home

Demand for affordable housing is so high in Salford that 28 people are bidding for every property that becomes available. And that’s despite another new 461 affordable properties having been made available in the last year. The figures are from the latest update from Salford City Council’s affordable housing programme which aims to deliver a mixture of social rented, affordable rented and shared ownership homes. This report says that although 17% of new homes provided in Salford last year by developers, landlords and housing associations were affordable the city still needs 760 new affordable homes each year to meet need. Read more on 24housing.

http://www.24housing.co.uk/news/single-council-snapshot-shows-28-bids-for-every-affordable-home/

Labour Demolishes HCA Affordable Homes Stats

Report shows 13,549 housing starts on site and 11,867 housing completions delivered through HCA  programmes in England from April to September this year. Now Labour has demolished latest HCA stats showing a ‘rise’ in the number of affordable homes being built. Shadow secretary of state for housing, John Healey, says the stats in fact show a 98% fall in new social rented homes. Healey said: “These shocking new figures show that in the six months before the chancellor’s so-called ‘housing Budget’, the number of new government-funded homes for social rent fell by 98% compared to Labour’s last year in office.” Read more on 24housing.

Government Should ‘Throw Weight Behind’ Council Housing Companies

The government should “throw its weight behind” council housing companies, the chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) has said. Lord Gary Porter was responding to a report from the Smith Institute which reveals a “quiet revolution” in council housebuilding, with around 150 councils setting up housing companies despite little government support. The report shows that increasing numbers of councils are directly funding their own housing companies without government grant to try and meet local housing need, mostly building homes for private rent and sale. Some are recycling the company’s profits to subsidise new affordable and social rented homes, as well as providing temporary accommodation and housing for older people. Read a summary of the report on the Smith Institute website.

Government Confirms 25,000 Homes Figure Is ‘An Estimate’

Recently, the government briefed journalists that the £2bn could pay for 25,000 social rented homes over five years. Now, a CLG spokesperson has said this was just an estimate. The exact number will depend on the bids that are submitted by councils and housing associations. The money will likely fund a number of affordable rented homes and properties at other tenures as well. Social rented homes require a higher subsidy than affordable rented homes, so if a provider bids to build affordable rented homes they could build more homes overall. The £2bn funding will be focused on “supporting council housebuilding and housing associations in areas of greatest need”. Read more on Inside Housing.

Labour Pledges 'Living Rent' Homes As Part Of Affordable Programme

A Labour government would fund new ‘Living Rent’ homes, capped at a third of local incomes, as part of its pledge to build 100,000 affordable homes a year. Inside Housing can exclusively reveal the party’s plans to take London mayor Sadiq Khan’s ‘Living Rent’ product national if it wins. The party is planning a major expansion of grant funding for new social rented homes, as well as ownership tenures such as shared ownership, with ‘Living Rent’ designed as its mid-market product. Read more on Inside Housing.

Social Housing 'Deals' Plan Builds On CLG Work

Ongoing behind the scenes work with three councils will form the basis of flagship Conservative plans for ‘bespoke deals’ to build social rented housing, it is understood.  In a statement, Mrs May said she plans to enable “the most ambitious” councils and housing associations build “a new generation” of socially rented properties. This builds on behind-the-scenes work with three authorities – Stoke, Sheffield and Newark and Sherwood – which have been discussing a package of measures that could allow them to step-up house building. The packages discussed would include flexibility on borrowing caps – imposed under the self-financing deal in 2012 – but also involve new deals on rent setting and bland assembly powers. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Housing Company Homes Could Be Subject To The Right To Buy

The government wants homes built through councils’ private housing companies to be subject to Right to Buy. A growing number of councils have set up housing companies to build homes for affordable rent, private rent and market sale. A government spokesperson confirmed the Right to Buy would only apply to the affordable and social rent homes developed by these companies. Some have set up these companies partly in an attempt to avoid having to sell off their stock through Right to Buy. The government had previously warned councils not to use council companies to “evade” the Right to Buy. Read more on Inside Housing.

Sharp Increase In Sales Of Social Stock

Housing associations have reported a 48% annual increase in sales of social rented homes, as they seek greater value for money from their assets. The Homes and Communities Agency’s (HCA) statistical data return shows associations disposed of 4,406 homes in 2015/16, up from 2,982 in 2014/15. Disposals are defined by the HCA as sales of social rented homes for ‘non-social housing use’. The figures also show that when demolitions, Social Homebuy sales and Right to Buy sales are factored in, the total amount of stock leaving the sector has increased by 16.6% to 18,419 homes year on year. Read more on the HCA website.

Social Rented Housing: EU Nationals – Parliamentary Written Answer

Deidre Brock: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Answer of 7 July 2015 to Question 5576, on social rented housing: EU nationals, whether it remains his Department's policy to introduce a four-year residency requirement for EU migrants following the decision of the UK to leave the EU.

Gavin Barwell: The Government remains of the view that social housing should be for those with a strong connection to the local community. Statutory guidance issued in December 2013 already ensures that only people who have lived in their area for at least two years can apply to their council for social housing. We are considering whether to go further and adopt a stronger residency test by extending this to four years.

England Could Lose 300,000 Socially Rented Homes By 2020

An estimated 300,000 socially rented homes could be lost in England by 2020. The Government's drive to boost home ownership will radically change the housing landscape across the country, MPs in the Public Accounts Committee were told. The extension of right-to-buy to housing association tenants combined with other policies to increase owner occupancy will radically reduce the number of socially rented homes. Terrie Alafat, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, told the committee: "We have done some analysis looking forward on the loss of social-rented housing, based on right-to-buy and the current policy, the proposed extension, the shift from social to affordable rent and then sales. And by 2020 we think there will be a loss of about 300,000-odd socially rented homes across the country.” Read more on the BT website.

Right to Buy Sales Outstrip New Social Rented Homes

The number of social rented homes sold under Right to Buy annually has now outstripped the number built. Government figures show that more social housing tenants exercised their Right to Buy in 2013/14 than the number of new social rented homes built in England and Wales. In 2013/14, there were 11,514 Right to Buy sales and 10,920 units of additional social rented homes, the CLG figures show. In 2012/13, there were 6,114 Right to Buy sales and 17,620 additional social rented homes. In addition to social rented housing, 19,740 ‘affordable rent’ homes were built in 2013/14. The last time there were more Right to Buy sales than new social rented homes built was in 2005/06 when there were 28,519 sales and 23,630 new social homes. Read more on the ONS website.

New Homes for Social Rent at Lowest Level since Second World War

The number of new homes for social rent fell to its lowest level since the Second World War during 2013-14, government figures have shown. Just 10,840 social rent homes were built by councils and housing associations during 2013-14, the lowest figure since 1945, tables published by the CLG revealed. It means that of the 42,710 'affordable' homes built during 2013-14, just 25% were for social rent. Read more on 24dash.