Green Homes Grant Set For Autumn Reboot

Green construction board chair says business secretary indicated an ‘equivalent’ to be launched later this year. A replacement for the scrapped Green Homes Grant is expected to be announced as part of the autumn spending review, a senior figure in the Construction Leadership Council’s net zero team has revealed. David Pinder, chair of the Green Construction Board, said business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng had told the CLC that he expected a replacement for the botched scheme to be announced later this year. Read more on the Housing Today website.

Green Homes Grant set for autumn reboot | News | Housing Today 

Post-Grenfell Cladding Work Could Take Until 2029

Grenfell-style combustible cladding is being replaced so slowly that it could take until 2029 before all buildings are fixed, Labour has said. According to government figures, 249 high-rise apartment blocks are yet to be made completely safe, and the majority of them are still wrapped in dangerous aluminium composite material (ACM) panels. Over the last six months privately owned towers have been fixed at a rate of 1.2 per month, and 88 blocks have still not started remediation works, official figures show. Social housing blocks are being fixed at the rate of just over two per month, and there are nine where nothing has happened yet. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/08/post-grenfell-cladding-work-could-take-until-2029-at-current-rate-says-labour 

Johnson Considers Focus On Homeownership

New prime minister Boris Johnson is weighing up a new part-rent, part-buy housing tenure in a switch that could see a move away from social rent. It would be part of a greater focus by Mr Johnson on homeownership. The proposed policy would not forbid social landlords from building homes for social rent but they would have to self fund. Whether it would take the place of Help to Buy when it is scrapped in March 2023 is not clear. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/boris-johnson-considers-focus-on-homeownership-62418

Ministers Ready To Fund Replacement Of Grenfell-Style Cladding

Ministers are believed to be poised to release hundreds of millions of pounds to fix private tower blocks wrapped in combustible Grenfell-style cladding after mounting public anger that dozens of freeholders and developers have refused to pay to make them safe. About 20,000 people living in private leasehold homes are estimated to be affected by the risk caused by the now-banned plastic-filled panels, similar to those which helped spread the fire at Grenfell that killed 72 people. Having spent months trying to persuade property companies to pay with only limited success, housing ministers appear to be convinced of the need to step in with public funds. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/08/ministers-ready-to-fund-replacement-of-grenfell-style-cladding

31% Of ALMO Right To Buy Stock Not Replaced In 2018

The annual survey looking at the state of the ALMO sector in England has shown latest build figures and wider impact on communities. One of the stark figures is that only 46% of Right To Buy sales were replaced with new build. This figure rises to 69% when acquisitions are included. Of the 31 ALMOs, three quarters of the building was done by just six, showing a real challenge for the sector. The year before, 59% was being built by just three of them. The NFA, which authored the report, says this is a “year-on-year problem with properties not being replaced fully from previous years’ sales”. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/31-of-almo-right-to-buy-stock-not-replaced-in-2018/

New Housing Agency To Boost Housebuilding

A new national housing agency – Homes England – has been launched by Housing Secretary Sajid Javid as one of the key steps towards delivering the homes the country needs. As the successor to the Homes and Communities Agency, Homes England will drive forward change, as set out in the government’s housing white paper. Homes England will play a major role in fixing the housing market by helping to deliver an average of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. Read more on the Gov UK website.

'New Regulator Is Not A Return To TSA,'

Senior leaders at the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) have hit back at criticisms over regular changes to the social housing regulator over the past decade.  The announcement that the government intends to separate the regulator from the HCA’s commercial arm was greeted with scepticism by some in the housing sector who said this would mean a return to an earlier model that was previously rejected. The regulator started life as the Housing Corporation, was changed to the TSA, was replaced by the HCA and will now return to being an independent regulator. Read more on Inside Housing.

Half of Landlords Affected By Removal of Wear And Tear Allowance

Almost half (47 per cent) of landlords will be affected by the removal of the annual wear and tear allowance, according to new findings from the National Landlords Association (NLA). The research findings show that a quarter of landlords (24 per cent) let their properties fully furnished, with 22 per cent letting a mixture of furnished and unfurnished properties. Just over half of landlords (53 per cent) let their properties on an unfurnished basis. The news comes shortly after the government announced its intention to scrap the annual wear and tear allowance – which is only available for furnished properties – and replace it with a tax relief system that enables all landlords to deduct the costs they actually incur on replacing furnishings in the property. Read more on the NLA website.

Help-To-Buy Scheme Needs Replacement Before It Ends

Failure to replace the help-to-buy mortgage guarantee scheme when it comes to an end next year will choke off competition and push the first-time buyer market back into decline, lenders have warned. The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA), which represents firms that market their products through brokers and advisers, said 65% of its members believed competition would fall unless a permanent indemnity scheme was brought in to replace Help-to-Buy 2.  Read more on the Guardian website.