Council Taken To Court Over Allocation Scheme That ‘Removes Homeless Families From Housing Register’

A London council’s allocations scheme which is accused of “removing a very significant proportion of homeless people” from its social housing register is to be challenged in the High Court. Lambeth Council is being challenged over the lawfulness of its ‘Temp to Settled’ policy, which offers to assign a higher level of priority to homeless households on the social housing register if they withdraw their homeless application and move into private rented accommodation. However, those who have accepted this offer and moved outside the borough have then found themselves removed from the list due to the loss of a local connection. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/council-taken-to-court-over-allocation-scheme-that-removes-homeless-families-from-housing-register-64157?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

Council Breached Home Standard Over ‘Long-Standing’ Safety Issues

In a regulatory notice, the RSH said it had ascertained that, over a number of years, Lambeth has had a significant number of overdue remedial actions arising from fire risk assessments (FRAs). This included some FRAs considered within the borough’s own classification system to be “intolerable” or “substantial”, the regulator said. The regulator said that it had also concluded, through its engagement with the provider, that there had been failings across Lambeth’s statutory duties relating to asbestos management and gas safety. Read more on the Social Housing website.

https://www.socialhousing.co.uk/news/lambeth-council-breached-home-standard-over-long-standing-safety-issues-64142

Council Plans To Strip Tenants Of Right To Buy

Lambeth Council has angered its residents and ministers by pledging to strip tenants of the Right to Buy when their homes are replaced during its largest-ever estate regeneration programme. The Labour-led south London authority has unveiled plans to shift tenants with ‘secure’ council tenancies to an ‘enhanced’ form of ‘assured lifetime’ tenancy when they move into replacement homes. According to council papers, the new tenancy will match those offered by councils “as closely as possible”. In addition to losing the Right to Buy, the new tenancy will exclude the ‘Right to Manage’, which allows tenants to take over the running of their homes and the ‘Right to Transfer’, used to trigger the transfer of homes to a housing association. Residents will also cease to be tenants of Lambeth Council once their homes are replaced. It is understood the social housing rent cut is therefore also unlikely to apply to HfL stock. Read more on Inside Housing.

Reduction of 31 ALMOs in Five Years

Nine arm’s-length management organisations (ALMOs) have been scrapped, converted to housing associations or earmarked for closure in the last few months. Waltham Forest is the latest ALMO to look at bringing services back in-house. This follows two other London councils, Hackney and Lambeth, which have also recently announced plans to scrap their ALMOs. The closures will bring the net reduction of ALMOs since 2010 to 31, leaving the National Federation of ALMOs with 39 members, down from 70 at the ALMO programme’s height in 2010. Read more on Inside Housing.

Social Landlords Preventing Tenants from Securing Best Energy Deals

Tenants on housing estates across London are unable to secure the cheapest energy deals because they have been 'locked' into long-term contracts with one supplier by their social landlord, according to the campaign group Fuel Poverty Action (FPA). The FPA says, in one case, residents of the Myatts Field North estate have been locked in to buying their heating and hot water from e.on for 40 years under a private finance initiative contract agreed by Lambeth council. Read more on 24dash.

Council Claims Vacant Building Credit Will Reduce Supply of Affordable Housing

A London borough has claimed that it would have lost a third of its affordable housing provision if the Government’s Vacant Building Credit (VBC) had been applied to recently consented schemes. Based on 14 recently consented major schemes , predominantly in the Vauxhall regeneration area, Lambeth Council said it has calculated that instead of a the current total of 866 affordable units, if VBC had been applied, this figure would have been 592 – a 32% reduction. The VBC introduced by the Government as a means of encouraging the redevelopment of more brownfield sites by easing the requirement on developers to contribute to affordable housing. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Council House Evictions In Lambeth Are Symptom of 'Profit Making Culture'

The borough of Lambeth is gripped by a 'profit making culture' over the emptying of council houses, a whistleblower has claimed in a new documentary. The decision to sell more than a thousand homes in Lambeth is hurting the most vulnerable people in society because of a wider focus on “short-term gain”, according to claims made by the former council policy officer. He said residents had been evicted even after taking decades to repair derelict homes. The claims were aired in a new documentary directed by Chris Hersom called Home, which was recently screened at the British Film Institute. The whistleblower said: “What’s happening now is that there is this attitude that everything needs to make a profit – even in local government services. And it’s meaning that whether by accident or design people using social services are being pushed out.” Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Tenant-Led Stock Transfer Stalls after Council Probe

The first tenant management organisation to apply for stock transfer in London under new powers will fight a ‘hostile’ supervision order that could delay the deal. Patmos Area Community Conservation Association applied to Lambeth Council for a stock transfer under new regulations forcing councils to co-operate with tenant groups wishing to take ownership of their estates. But it has emerged PACCA has been under supervision from the town hall since December, after the borough commissioned Pricewaterhouse Coopers to investigate the TMO’s finances due to concerns about its performance. The group had been planning to apply for transfer for months. Aside from exceptional circumstances, Lambeth has no power to refuse the transfer but a council spokesperson confirmed it will not go ahead while the supervision order is in place. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council under Fire for Withholding Hardship Cash

A council has come under fire for withholding £2 million of emergency hardship cash. Labour-led Lambeth Council was branded ‘tight fisted and hypocritical’ by Liberal Democrat opponents, after they refused nearly half of the requests for discretionary housing payment. The borough was also attacked for only spending £148,000 of a £1.6 million pot to provide crisis grants and loans. This is in addition to a £1.5 million DHP allocation, of which £580,000 has been spent. By the end of October 1,953 requests for emergency loans and grants had been received but only 439 were accepted, the Liberal Democrats claimed. They said £600,000 intended for grants had been diverted into ‘community projects.’ Read more on Inside Housing.

Legal Challenge to New Offices-To-Flats Rules

Lambeth Council has launched a legal challenge against government legislation allowing offices to be turned into flats.  Under new government legislation a builder only has to submit a prior approval notice and provided no objections are received work can go ahead.  Judicial review papers request Brixton and Streatham town centres be exempt from the rules over fears it will harm trade and job prospects.  The government said it would "vigorously defend" any legal action.  Read more on the BBC website.

Council Takes Housing Co-Op to Court

A council is taking a well-known housing co-operative to court to evict members from a building it says is unsafe.  Lambeth Council is seeking an injunction and possession order to remove the residents of Carlton Mansions from the 16-flat block in Brixton, London, following a fire risk assessment in.

Members of the Carlton Mansions housing co-op have been fighting the move saying their own fire risk assessment shows the fire risk is ‘tolerable’.  The council’s fire risk assessment found the opposite.  Read more on Inside Housing.