‘Remorseless Rise’ In Use Of Temporary Accommodation

Use of temporary accommodation is “rising remorselessly” despite a fall in homelessness acceptances, according to the 2020 UK Housing Review. The review reports the total again rose by 5% year-on-year to top more than 86,000 last June – 79% above its low point eight years ago. London continues to account for two-thirds of the total number of placements at any one point in time – 57,000 as of June last year. Related spending by councils is also growing quickly, totalling almost £1.1bn to March last year – a 78% in just five years. Read the Review on the CIH website.

https://www.ukhousingreview.org.uk/ukhr20/acknowledgements.html

UK Housing Review Calls For Increased Grant Levels For Social Housing

In the latest UK Housing Review, there are calls for government to increase the grant levels for social housing. While grants have risen slightly in the last two years, they now cover just 11% of housing association’s development costs, leaving the rest to be met by borrowing and surpluses. One-third of new homes are being built without any grant. The review also shows only 11% of new homes built in England is at genuinely affordable social rents, compared with nearly 70% in Scotland and over 80% in Wales. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/uk-housing-review-calls-for-increased-grant-levels-for-social-housing/

Brexit Means We Need Fewer Houses - Or Does It?

It is an obvious claim, already made by some newspapers opposed to building in the countryside: if we are leaving the EU, there will be fewer migrants, and so we can build fewer new houses. In the latest edition of the 2017 UK Housing Review – just published by the Chartered Institute of Housing – we have looked at whether such a claim stacks up. Demand for housing depends mainly on household growth. The latest projections for England were made before last June’s referendum. They suggested that we need to build 227,000 homes a year up to 2024, with a lower target after that. Of the total, 37% – or 84,000 a year – results from migration. Read more on the CML website.

New UK Housing Review Site Is Source Of Historic Housing Data

In 2017 the UK Housing Review will celebrate its 25th edition. The UK Housing Review is the annual publication that charts in detail the changes in the housing market, government housing policy and investment, social housing, help with housing costs and a host of other topics. Since 1999 the published Review has been issued by the CIH and the detailed tables and commentary chapters have been available on the Review’s own website. This has now been taken over by CIH and brought up to date. This means that 120 compendium tables for 2016 are now accessible and can be downloaded, both as pdf documents and Excel files. Read more on the Housing Review website.

Alarming Lack Of Government Investment In Affordable Housing To Rent

The UK Housing Review briefing's summary of current government support for affordable and private market housing investment in England from 2015/16 onwards shows that out of the £45 billion of government investment dedicated to housing, just £2 billion is being spent on below-market rented housing, only four per cent of the total. This is largely because money previously directed toward housing for rent is now going towards low-cost homeownership initiatives, such as shared ownership and starter homes, where over £6 billion is now to be invested. This means that 80 per cent of government commitments - a further £36 billion – is now going to wider initiatives to support the private market, especially via help to buy. Read more on the Housingnet website.

Support For Private Market More Than Double Spending On Affordable Homes

The new UK Housing Review 2016 puts together figures you won’t find anywhere else: the government’s investment plans for housing and how they split between supporting the private market and building affordable homes. They show that the different market-support packages like Help to Buy and starter homes now total £43 billion, whereas affordable investment totals only £18 billion. The CIH concludes that, as a result, investment in affordable renting ‘will fall to its lowest levels since the Second World War’. Read more on the Red Brick blog.

Report Calls For More Affordable Housing

As the housing crisis continues, first-time buyer figures highlighted in this year’s UK Housing Review reveal the significant need for government to focus housing policy and investment on a rented offer for households for whom home ownership is out of reach.  Figures highlight that government is investing a total of £42 billion in the private market, with only £18 billion spent on affordable rented housing - just 30 per cent of the total investment in housing.  The effect of the government's switch in priorities since last autumn’s Spending Review means that investment in affordable renting will fall to its lowest levels since the Second World War. Of the government's target for new homes to be built by 2020, only 12 per cent will be affordable rented homes. Read more on Housingnet.

Call For UK Wide Housing Review To Access Impact Of Buy Let Tax Change

A long term, strategic comprehensive review of housing policy and housing need in the UK is needed as recent changes are set to distort the property market, it is claimed. In particular, the Government ought to recognise the contribution of private landlords as tax changes could seriously affect the buy to let market to the detriment of those who cannot or choose not to buy a home. In a response to the Government’s new stamp duty regime for second homes, Paragon Mortgages says that there should be a comprehensive review looking at the housing dynamics over the last 30 years. The company also says that there are more significant structural issues at play in the heart of the housing market so the review is needed to look at housing provision across all tenures. Read more on the Property Wire website.

Time to Play Catch up On Right to Buy

The Treasury needs to let go of the Right to Buy reins. Councils must be given the freedom to focus on replacing those homes that have been sold. Right to Buy was the Thatcher government’s biggest privatisation. But with nearly two million homes already sold, can the next government at least start to replace the houses lost through future sales? The latest UK Housing Review shows that capital receipts from sales in England now total £42bn since Right to Buy began. It sounds like a lot of money, but at an average of little more than £20,000 per house it’s obvious why replacement has never happened. Indeed, except for a short period under the last government when discounts were reduced and sales slumped, they’ve always exceeded new social house building – and usually by a considerable margin. Read more on the Public Finance website.

Millions of PRS Tenants Living In Sub-Standard Housing

A third of homes in England's private rented sector are failing decency standards, a new report has revealed. According to the Chartered Institute of Housing's UK Housing Review 2014, 33% of the country's PRS homes would not pass the government's decent homes standard. In sharp contrast, 15% of homes in the social sector failed to meet the standard in 2012 - down from 29% in 2006. The survey reveals that the PRS overtook the social rented sector in 2012-13 to become the second biggest tenure in England, after homeownership. There are now four million private rented households in the country (18% of all households) compared with 3.7 million social rented households (17%). Read more on the CIH website.

Housing Analysts Warn On Future Homelessness

In the midst of fierce debates over the controversial Welfare Reform Bill, new analysis from CIH shows that the government’s welfare reforms and cuts in investment are bound to impact on the homelessness figures. The 20th annual UK Housing Review shows that across the UK statutory homelessness rose in 2010 for the first time since 2003. The report says big differences have emerged in approaches to dealing with homelessness across the UK. In England, two-thirds of homelessness is now dealt with outside the statutory rules, while in Scotland cases accepted under the statutory rules are actually growing. Partly as a consequence, England has made big cuts in its use of temporary accommodation while in Scotland the number of temporary housing placements has doubled since 2003. Read more on the CIH website.

UK Housing Review

To coincide with its annual conference at Harrogate, the CIH has produced a report, The UK Housing Review, which looks at the economic background, the Spending Review and how its measures affect housing, and the prospects for revival of housebuilding and the housing market. This Briefing is an up-to-the-minute assessment of these and other current issues which are highly relevant to the new government’s plans, together with a summary of key data.
Download a copy from the CIH website.