ROOF Blog archive

John Hills has a letter in The Guardian denying that he thinks providing new homes is not an important challenge – it just wasn’t the focus of his report.

Problem families could be put into residential care for up to two years, reports the Daily Mirror after Tony Blair’s monthly press conference. Go here and here for other angles on his comments.

The CBI, Home Builders Federation and British Property Federation have come out strongly against the planning gain supplement, reports the Financial Times as consultation ends today.

Scotland’s five main housing organisations are lobbying communities minister Rhona Brankin today with a joint election programme [downloads pdf] including a call for 10,000 new affordable homes for rent per year.

A group of 36 leading construction firms has formed a Green Building Council to help rise to the challenge of building eco homes, reports The Guardian.

House prices rose 0.9% in January, taking the annual rate to 7.7%, according to the Land Registry [downloads PDF].

The Nationwide said the market was slowing in the wake of interest rate rises, but prices still rose 0.7% in February.

The Housing Corporation has announced a shortlist of 17 schemes for its Northern Housing Challenge.

Ken Livingstone has published his climate change action plan for London. A green homes programme proposes a cut of 7.7m tonnes in carbon emissions from homes by 2025.

Meanwhile housebuilder Stewart Milne Group has unveiled designs for what it says is ‘one of the first five-star near zero carbon homes’.

The council tax is overdue for reform, says The Guardian in an editorial ahead of figures revealing a new rise that are due out tomorrow.

Tables from the UK Housing Review, the annual housing finance bible by Steve Wilcox, are now online here.

Building society lending to housing associations rose 33% in 2006 to £2bn, according to the Building Societies Association. Although societies only account for 18% of mortgage lending, they have a 44% share of the association market.

More than 2m homes will still be in local authority hands by the end of 2006/07, housing minister Yvette Cooper said in a written answer yesterday. They were worth £91.4bn according to the last national estimate (in 1999) and had an associated housing debt of £14.5bn.

The Cave review of social housing regulation is the top item on the agenda of a new DCLG discussion forum.

Despite calls for delays, the DCLG stll seems determined to press ahead with the introduction of home information packs in June. You can find information on area trials here.

The government’s Better Regulation Commission is urging the DCLG to delay the introduction of energy performance certificates because they will impose ‘additional administrative burdens without adequate justification’, reports the Financial Times.

Only 100 people have bought in the first five months of open market homebuy, reports the Telegraph.

Families of people caught with guns will be evicted and moved out for their communities in an idea to be tested on Merseyside, says the Telegraph.

Kate Barker defends her proposals on the green belt in an interview in the Sunday Times.

Work will begin next month on a zero carbon development in London docklands, says the Indpendent on Sunday.

Average house prices are above the inheritance tax threshhold in 236 postcode areas, according to research by the Halifax [downloads word doc].

A review of the welfare state will recommend cheap loans for the long-term unemployed to help pay off their debts, says Saturday’s Guardian.

Saturday’s Daily Mail helpfully reminds readers that Labour leadership candidate Michael Meacher owns five homes, including three for his own use, worth £2.5m.

The Audit Commission has published its reponse to the Cave review of housing regulation.

The Housing Corporation has published its response to the Cave review of regulation. It says it wants more freedom for housing providers to innovate and more rights for tenants and communities to hold them to account.

The Audit Commission is planning snap, unannounced inspections of housing associations as part of a new, risk-based approach, reports Inside Housing.

Tenants who buy a 10% stake in their home could end up paying more in repair bills than they did to buy in the first place, reports Inside Housing.

The magazine also has a long article by John Hills [downloads PDF] on his review.

John Hills is right about the rich and poor living in mixed communities, says Joan Bakewell in the Independent.

New rules and regulations will force buy-to-let landlords to act more like businesses, according to The Times.

The crash in the US housing market will lead to a second great depression, predicts the doom-mongering Market Oracle blog.

HOW CAN WE build the new homes we need and help save the planet? That’s the key question addressed in the March/April issue of ROOF, an environment special.

The magazine includes an interview with Kate Barker, articles from leading environmentalists Jonathon Porritt and George Monbiot, an attack on conservationists from former Telegraph editor Charles Moore and a radical new plan from comedian Rob Newman. We also have an A-Z of housing and the environment, guides to the financial and legal issues and a look at what went right – and wrong – on Britain’s most famous zero carbon development.

Plus – just why was Ann Widdecombe bathless in Burnley?

Go here to subscribe.

This issue’s cover stories:

No brainer

Marcus Brigstocke asks, would £25 million for Trident be better spent elsewhere?

Must-see TV

Greg Dyke warns tenants will miss more than Coronation Street if landlords don’t help them go digital

Be a doorstep donor

Matthew Parris says poor people abroad are easier to help, but charity begins at home

Leave us out

Supporting People doesn’t work for sheltered housing, says Barbara Laing

Nice taps…

But shame about the ‘decent’ homes, says Anil Singh

Looking good, feeling happy

Alain de Botton believes interior design is far from self-indulgent

Can’t afford a mortgage?

Have one anyway. Howard Springett worries about a new class of lender

Remember when…

Homelessness topped the agenda? Sir George Young is wistful

ROOF Interview

Des Wilson, first director of Shelter, recalls the early days of the campaign

Locked out

Another crackdown on anti-social behaviour. But what happens next? Simon Ellery reports

Get out clause

Your home is only fit for demolition. But what if you want to stay in it?

Making allowances

The experiment with local housing allowance is over. So it’s goodbye housing benefit, hello what?

People Power

Back in 1946, ordinary citizens broke the law and forced the PM to stick to his housing promises

Not our problem

A council stands accused of avoiding its duty to provide housing

Bias cut

A new code will help remove race discrimination from housing, Nnenna Morah hopes

Frontline

Nathaniel Mathews discovers that the moral is: never help yourself

Unsung heroes

Three cheers for the court duty officers who help fight off eviction, says Steve Povey

Operating theatre

John Schofield is sceptical about housing association performance measures

Valley rally

Kevin Morgan and Bob Smith think stock transfer could bring hope to poor areas

Back office

Sebastian Taylor’s column on housing finance

Plenty to rent

Paddy Gray on the rise of private renting in Northern Ireland

Tenants’ turn

Jacky Peacock says councils don’t take account of private renters

HMO selector

Good landlords should welcome licensing, says Sarah Mitchell

Rattling good read

Frank Dobson admires the style of this defence of council housing

Beneath the cheese

Peter Malpass finds local flavour

Love and mayhem

Sam Barber enjoys a novel approach

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The Audit Commission has published local authority comprehensive performance assessments: 71% of councils with responsibility for housing are performing in the top two categories, an increase of 8% from 2005.

Among its housing inspections, Golden Gates Housing – the ALMO in Warrrington – got a top ranking.

Will the buy-to-let boom last? asks The Guardian in a business feature. The answer: it may but then again it may not.

Housebuilder Wimpey is planning to sell 400 £60,000 flats this year to first-time buyers, says the Times. Yesterday’s results show it’s enjoying fat margins in the UK market but took a £60m hit in the USA.

The Commission on Integration & Cohesion issues an interim statement yesterday with housing allocation a key theme.

The DCLG has published research on monitoring the sustainability of buildings including homes. Carbon emissions from buildings went up by 1.1% between 2004 and 2006 although energy use fell.

Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell clashed with Tony Blair over housing at prime minister’s questions yesterday. Campbell condemned a 600,000 rise in the number of families waiting for social housing under Labour while Blair said there had been a ‘vast’ increase in investment.

Brighton will not get a stock transfer [see story below] but it will get what it claims is the world’s first One Planet Living carbon neutral community.

And finally…More than half the ASBOs issued in Eastbourne in the last two years went to people over 50, reports the Telegraph. Noisy DIY was a big problem.

John Hills is presenting his report on the future of social housing at noon. More later.

Among the previews in this morning’s papers, The Times reports that thousands of new tenants will be offered six-month tenancies. You can hear the Today programme item on Hills here.

The DCLG has published research on the demand for social housing, a synthesis of existing data on who currently lives in it and who wants to.

The DCLG also published research into the acheivements of local area agreements and future arrangements for them.

The Financial Times reports on a new survey showing a quarter of lenders will now offer mortgages running for 40 years.

Which is not such a problem for the super-rich: The Times reports plans for flats overlooking Hyde Park costing £26m each.

The CML published figures showing January mortgage lending at an all-time high and 16% up on January 2006.

The Daily Mirror reports that council tenants will lose their security of tenure under proposals due in the Hills review of social housing tomorrow. Tenants would be means tested and lose their home if their income goes up and children would lose their right to take over their parents’ tenancy, it predicts.

UPDATE: But communities secretary Ruth Kelly downplayed the possibility on The World at One and the programme said John Hills had told it he was not recommending the end of security of tenure.

Defend Council Housing offers Hills some new ‘useful pointers’ on its website.

The housing market boom is over, says Ashley Seagar in The Guardian, while admitting he’s got it wrong before.

Compulsory treatment in mental hospitals is the solution to homelessness, says Big Issue founder John Bird in the Mail on Sunday. The article is publicising a film on Channel Four on Friday.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has issued a new practice guide for planners on development in flood-risk areas.

The Housing Corporation has announced a shortlist of 12 housing associations for its Gold Award 2007.

Independent regulation of housing associations is vital to maintaining lender confidence in the sector, says the CML [downloads PDF] in its reponse to the Cave review.

Housing associations should exploit £6.8 billion of spare borrowing capacity to fund new homes, a Housing Corporation report said this morning [more below].

The National Housing Federation will call for housing association self-regulation in its submission to the Cave Review, according to Inside Housing.

A slump in right to buy sales is leading to cuts in housing funding in seven English regions, reports Inside Housing.

Local authorities are making ‘vastly inflated’ claims on the number of empty homes they are bringing back into use, according to Inside Housing.

Yesterday’s figures showing only a small rise in completions of new homes draw criticism from surveyors, house builders and Shelter in the Independent.

Citizens Advice saw 15% more people with debt problems in January than in January 2006.

• The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has published research on the early impact of and lessons to be drawn from the first three rounds of arm’s length management organisations (ALMOs).
• Housing starts in England rose 3% to 183,000 in 2006, according to DCLG statistics. Completions were little changes at 160,000.
• A rash of housing inspections from the Audit Commission includes the first three-star supporting people rating for a county council (Hampshire) and only the second three-star rating for a housing association (Tower Homes). Northumberland got zero stars for its supporting people service.
• The Duchy of Cornwall [Prince Charles Land plc] has submitted plans for an 850-home development – inevitably dubbed Surfbury – on the outskirts of Newquay. The plan bristles with sustainability and energy efficiency.
• Genesis Housing Group is planning its biggest-ever development after acquiring land for 750 homes near the Olympics sites in Stratford, east London.
• A housebuilder is offering to pay £12,000 in school fees to buyers of £576,000 houses in Edinburgh, reports the Herald.
• A survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says the housing market is slowing down, reports the Guardian.
• But several papers, including the Telegraph, are interpreting the Bank of England’s latest inflation report as a signal of another interest rate rise on the way.

• The UNICEF report on child poverty that puts Britain bottom of a league table of industrialised nations dominates many of today’s papers. A gifthorse of a story for the Mail, while the Mirror highlights homelessness among children.
• The ‘right to own’ [see yesterday] gets short shrift in the Times, which highlights the failure of social homebuy so far.
• It got a cool response from the National Housing Federation, which said it must not be at the expense of new affordable homes, but was welcomed by the Chartered Institute of Housing as a ‘sensible way forward’.
• In the Guardian, Lynsey Hanley says it just reinforces the idea that ‘full citizenship is conferred only through individual wealth’ and champions the rights of council tenants to ‘remain just that and to be respected as such’.
• Genesis Housing Group said it would be launching a 10% ownership scheme at its Larden Road site in Hammersmith and Fulham in London.
• The Financial Times says next week’s Hills report will highlight how social housing can reduce labour market flexibility and be a barrier to work. It reports Kelly’s speech alongside moves by work and pensions secretary John Hutton to give the private sector a bigger role in welfare to work.
• The Mail reports that first-time buyers are paying £120 a month more than a year ago thanks to house price increases, rising interest rates and stamp duty.
• Buy to let lending grew by 50% last year, according to the CML [for more on this see below].
• Shelter Scotland has launched a campaign for an extra 30,000 affordable homes by 2012.

LAST YEAR saw yet another boom in buy to let, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Loans to landlords rose 48% by volume and 57% by value over 2005.

Buy-to-let now makes up 11% of the entire mortgage market – not bad for an idea that has existed for only ten years. After a brief pause for breath at the start of 2005, with a record 177,800 gross advances in the second half of 2006. Overall, the year saw 330,300 worth £38.4 billion.Can the boom go on? So far, public appetite for buy to let seems to be insatiable. While many professional investors may be focussed on long-term rental returns it is hard not to believe that many are looking entirely on capital growth, particularly when gearing can multiply that many times over.

For lenders, buy to let represents a highly profitable new area (see the 20% increased in business in Bradford and Bingley’s results yesterday, for example) with, so far, very little risk. The rate of repossession is marginally higher than in the traditional mortgage market but arrears are lower, and lenders have the option to appoint a court receiver to carry on collecting rents.

The consequences are becoming increasingly clear though. Private renting rose by 20% between 2000 and 2005 whereas the number of people buying with a mortgage fell. Up to half of new-build apartments in big cities are being bought by investors. And an acceleration in the redistribution of wealth to existing home owners.

• Communities secretary Ruth Kelly is floating a new ‘right to own’ scheme today for social housing tenants [see ‘Two futures’ below]. It’s trailed in several of this morning’s papers – go here and here.
• The Lib Dems dismissed the idea as a case of ‘planet Whitehall’ missing the point while the Conservatives said government policies were kicking people off the housing ladder not helping them on to it.
• December saw another record for mortgage lending and another record high for first-time buyers’ income multiples, according to new figures from the CML.
• The Financial Times analyses the housing boom in Northern Ireland.
• A report for London Councils says population mobility is costing them £100m a year
• The DCLG website has details of when regulations affecting housing will come into force this year. They include measures on leasehold, house buying, rental deposits, student housing and HMOs.

WHAT IS the future of social housing? With John Hills due to give his verdict soon, two contrasting views have emerged this week.

Today communities secretary Ruth Kelly will use a speech to the Fabian Society to ‘kick start a debate on the big challenges we’re facing’. Her big idea is to allow social housing tenants to buy a much smaller stake in their homes than at the moment – 10% rather than 25%. She told the Today programme this morning that this would help close the gap between people who can get on the housing ladder with parental help and those who are excluded from it. Go here to download or podcast Ruth Kelly’s interview [click on podcast].

Yesterday the pressure group Defend Council Housing launched a report [downloads PDF] calling for a reversal in government policy to allow local authorities to keep their stock and invest in it directly. Kelly argues that lowering the threshhold for ownership could help thousands more tenants who want a way on to the housing ladder but can’t afford it at the moment. And she argued that this was not in conflict with increasing supply:

‘It’s not a question of either/or but a question of as we build those homes can we meet people’s aspirations as well as people’s need for security.’

However, Shelter’s Adam Sampson [go here and click on listen again] told Today: ‘We’re talking about something that is at best irrelevant to the housing crisis and at worst could exacerbate it.’ He also called for a clear commitment to reinvest any money raised in housing, something that Kelly went most of the way to doing (referring to the failure to reinvest right to buy receipts and saying ‘we can’t make those mistakes again’) without actually giving a guarantee.

Another barrier to the scheme could be interest from tenants. Kelly referred to high levels of interest among tenants at Notting Hill Housing Trust, which is experimenting with the idea, but tenants have not exactly been queuing round the corner for schemes like social homebuy (25% stake in your existing home) and open market home buy (25% equity loan to buy).

Defend Council Housing claims the support of 260 MPs for its early day motions calling for a change in policy. The last three Labour conferences have also voted in favour of a fourth option for council housing rather than transfer, ALMO or PFI.

The report, Dear Gordon, which looks set to be launched on the same day as the Hills review next week, is clearly an attempt to stake out an alternative future. It calls for councils to be allowed to invest the money they raise from housing and for debt to be written off as in transfer to create a level playing field. And it argues that the agenda behind the Hills and Cave reviews is one of undermining secure tenancies and releasing market forces.

It also challenges Kelly’s assertion at the last Labour conference that the fourth option would cost an extra £12 billion:

‘Ministers are deliberately trying to confuse three things: RSL higher costs; the implications of agreeing the principles associated with the ‘Fourth Option’; and the actual cost today of improving all remaining council homes.’

The report outlines how the fourth option would work in some detail:

• Ring fence all the money that belongs to council housing (tenants rents, ‘right to buy’ and other capital receipts) to fund an ‘investment allowance’ as first discussed in the ODPM’s own blue skies review of housing finance;
• Provide a ‘level playing field’ on debt so that authorities where tenants decide to keep the council as their landlord get debt written-off (or taken over) on the same terms as those who sell their homes;
• Set Management & Maintenance Allowances (M&M;) and Major Repairs Allowances (MRA) at a level that supports actual costs;
• Respect tenants choice and stop wasting money on one-sided expensive PR campaigns promoting privatisation;
• Encourage best practice by funding a genuinely independent tenants movement in each authority and establishing a Continuous Improvement Task Force to utilise expertise from authorities with a good track record to offer assistance to authorities who need help with improving particular services.

The plan set out in Dear Gordon seems reasonable enough, but adopting it would require a reversal of the last 20 years of government policy on council housing – a policy that Gordon Brown has accepted and even accelerated as chancellor.

• Previews of the Freud report on Welfare reform – due later this month – appear in several of today’s papers. The Mail predicts that people who are long-term unemployed and refuse to look for work will have their benefits stopped, while Peter Riddell in the Times focuses on plans to introduce work tests for lone parents.
• In a similar vein, the Telegraph reports on a new report by right-wing think tank Civitas that says a third of households are dependent on benefits for at least half their income.
• Defend Council Housing has published a new pamphlet making the case for a fourth option for council housing. Dear Gordon [downloads PDF] will be officially launched next week. More later.
• The DCLG reported accelerating house price inflation in its December index, with London leading the way.
• More warning signals from the American market, where Money Week reports that 18 sub-prime lenders have gone bust in the wake of the housing market problems that embarrassed HSBC last week. Guess what form of lending has grown spectacularly in the UK?
• The Housing Corporation and Audit Commission have signed a memorandum of understanding setting out how they will work together on regulation and inspection.
• Are you listening Gordon? Socialist French presidential candidate Segolene Royal pledged to fund 120,000 new social housing units a year in a manifesto launched at the weekend.

• Pressure is growing in the European Parliament to allow billions of pounds to spent on housing, reports Inside Housing.
• The magazine also reports on concern that housing association mergers are leading to a free-for-all in the market to build new homes.
• London mayor Ken Livingstone is looking at ways to stop new homes being snapped up by buy-to-let investors, who are buying 45% of new private homes in the capital, says Inside Housing.
• The Department of Work and Pensions has missed a key target on housing benefit. New figures [downloads PDF] show over-payments increased by 13% between 2002/03 and 2005/06. Its public service agreement target was a 20% reduction over the same period. Some £770 million was overpaid last year – 5.5% of total housing benefit expenditure.
• The Commission for Racial equality says Welsh councils are discriminating against ethnic minorities in the way they allocate housing, according to a report in the Western Mail.
• The housing market is cooling down in response to increases in interest rates, says the Financial Times. Its index shows the annual rate of increase is now 6.9%.
• The Guardian features the plight of traditional market towns under pressure from demand for more housing.
• The United States is seeing its biggest fall in house prices in more than 40 years, according to the Telegraph

WELCOME TO ROOF’s first lunchtime news, a new service that aims to cut through the information overload and bring you a quick selection of the most significant news about housing and homelessness on the web and in the media. You can check back at lunchtime every weekday to catch up with what’s happening, subscribe to our email alert service or let us know what else you want to see by commenting on this article.

• Luxury flats in Knightsbridge are selling for £4,200 per square foot, according to The Times. Four penthouse flats have sold for £84m.
• The government announced a new competition to encourage developers to build low and zero carbon homes [more on this below].
• A government scheme offering grants to make homes more energy efficient ran out of money after just ten hours, according to the Guardian.
• The government is under fire from the National Housing Federation and Campaign to Protect Rural England for dragging its feet on implementing the recommendations of its Affordable Rural Housing Commission.
• Lynsey Hanley, author of Estates, makes a passionate plea in Society Guardian for an end to the policy bias against social housing tenants.
• Housing minister Yvette Cooper gave a breakdown of additional homes produced by local authorities and housing associations in a written answer yesterday. Output is still half what it was ten years ago.
• and finally…this month’s jobsworth award goes to planning officers in Somerset. Burnham-on-Sea resident Sylvia Sparkes thought she was doing a simple good deed when she told Colin Johnstone, a homeless Big Issue seller, he could sleep in a caravan she wasn’t using. Not according to Sedgemoor District Council: ‘Government planning regulations require planning permission for any caravan used as an independent unit for accommodation,’ it said. More here.

• House prices rose 1.3% in January, according to the Halifax [downloads PDF], but the bank detects signs the market is slowing down.
• No change on interest rates, the Bank of England decided today.
• A cautionary note from another of the big banks though. HSBC says its bad debt provisions will be 20% higher largely because of problems in the US housing market
• London councils want mayor Ken Livingstone to press the government for a 50% increase in funding for affordable homes in his housing strategy
• A feature in the Telegraph predicts the government will endorse plans to build on parts of the green belt.
• Contrasting views of life in London come in the Independent’s coverage of the impact of the super-rich on London (inspired by those £84 million apartments) and features in the Guardian and Times on crime, poverty and housing in Peckham.
• Up to a third of new housing developments are so poor they should never have been given planning permission, according to architecture watchdog CABE [see below]. Go here for the Financial Times story.

More estates in Sheffield have voted in favour of stock transfer. More than 70% of tenants on the Hyde Park Walk & Terrace and Richmond Park, Birklands & Athelstan estates said yes to transferring their 596 homes to Sacntuary and Manchester Methodist housing associations.

These were the last in a series of votes set up by the city council after consultation with local tenant representatives revealed they would rather go for transfer than stay with the Sheffield Homes arm’s length management organisation.

MOST OF EUROPE saw house prices running well ahead of inflation last year and there are few signs of a slowdown this year, according to the European Housing Review 2007.

Germany and Portugal were the only major markets to see house price stagnation. The rate of increase fell back in France and Spain but the UK, Norway, Ireland and Greece all saw prices accelerate again in 2006. Prices also rose rapidly in several of the new EU member states, particularly in Poland.

The review, published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, includes full country by country details.