ROOF Blog archive

Britain’s housing landscape could be set for one of its most profound changes in more than half a century after pension funds confirmed plans to build blocks of homes for private rental in areas of greatest need. Much of the building will be in the South East.  Aviva said that it would plough millions of pounds into purpose-built rented accommodation for those priced out of home ownership. Legal & General confirmed that it too has been in talks with the government about funding build-to-let developments of up to 100 homes. This is the first time since before the Second World War that large institutional funds have viewed the private rented sector as a viable long-term investment prospect, coming after house price falls of 20 per cent and an increase in the number of renters brought about by the credit crunch.

Hundreds of stalled developments have been shortlisted for a share of a £925 million pot to help restart housing construction that has been stopped by the downturn. John Healey, housing minister, said yesterday that 270 schemes had been shortlisted as part of the ‘Kickstart’ programme. The projects have been identified by the Homes and Communities Agency, and are hoped to end in the building of 22,400 homes and the creation of 20,000 jobs. The government expects almost half the money to be repaid within five years, with more than a third to go to housing associations and less than one-fifth to support developers.

Homeowners are paying an average of £1,800 a year extra for their mortgages as banks fail to pass on cuts in borrowing rates. All the big lenders, including those saved from ruin by the taxpayer, are keeping their loan rates up, despite the bank base rate plunging to a historic low of 0.5 per cent. The banks have defended their high rates by claiming they have to refund the cost of borrowing money. Today they are adding an extra 2.61 per cent to the average mortgage on top of their borrowing costs. That means the average borrower with a typical mortgage is paying an extra £1,788 a year. The difference between the cost to the banks of borrowing money and the amount they charge for loans is the largest since the 1980s.

Britain’s high street banks are to be forced to undergo individual audits of their lending practices by the Treasury, amid claims they are still failing to lend fairly to cash-strapped businesses. After a meeting with the heads of Britain’s main lenders yesterday, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, said that each bank would have ‘someone looking over their shoulder’ to ensure they were not failing to pass on record low interest rates to small businesses. Treasury sources have been concerned that while lending to larger companies and for mortgages was improving, the terms handed to small and medium-sized firms had continued to deteriorate since 2007. MPs are also under pressure from constituents being priced out of loans or subjected to severe terms.

Hundreds of building projects will be cut to fund the government’s £1.5 billion social housing programme.  Furious council leaders have demanded an urgent meeting with ministers after being told that their plans are in jeopardy because there is no new money to pay for the policy, which was announced ten days ago. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that £1.5 billion would be found across Whitehall to fund up to 20,000 new homes for those on low incomes and on council house waiting lists. But the Department for Communities and Local Government, which was forced to find nearly £600 million, has said that the money will have to be taken from existing housing programmes as well as from plans to refurbish council and private rented homes.

Polish, Czech and other immigrants to the UK from the 10 countries that joined the European Union in 2004 have contributed more in taxes than they receive in benefits and services from the welfare state, according to new research. The arrival in the UK workforce of more than 500,000 immigrants from the eight accession countries prompted the standard concerns that they may take out more than they put in, said Christian Dustmann, professor of economics at University College London, which carried out the study. But a study of those who have been in the country for at least a year - and who are therefore eligible to claim benefits - shows that they have more than paid their way. The EU immigrants are 60 per cent less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits and 58 per cent less likely to live in social housing.

Gordon Brown yesterday attacked Conservative plans to shake up City regulation, claiming that handing banking supervision back to a beefed-up Bank of England was ‘completely wrong’.The prime minister fiercely defended the tripartite regulatory system he created in 1997, when the Bank’s former role of overseeing banks was transferred to the new Financial Services Authority. Speaking at his final Downing Street press conference before the summer break, Mr Brown was scornful of the Bank’s ability - under the Tory model - to supervise banks, building societies, insurers and other institutions while setting interest rates and ensuring overall financial stability. He rejected Tory proposals to axe the FSA, saying it should continue as the expert banking supervisor: ‘If anything, the FSA should have greater powers in the years to come.’

Britain’s borrowing surged to a record £13.3 billion in June, official figures showed yesterday as economists used phrases such as ‘dire’, ‘alarming’ and ‘parlous’ to describe the state of the nation’s public finances. The figure is nearly double that for the same month last year while the actual cash shortfall also stood at a record of £19 billion, £7.6 billion higher than last year. Total borrowing now stands at a colossal £799 billion – 56.6 per cent of gross domestic product. Debt as a proportion of national income is expected to surge above the level it reached when Jim Callaghan was forced to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund in 1976. And as a proportion of GDP, it is shooting up to levels not seen since Britain was paying off the borrowing it incurred to fund the Second World War.

The perilous state of the national finances was made public as it was disclosed that the National Audit Office has refused to sign off part of the Treasury’s accounts. The decline in government revenue for the 2008-09 financial year – the steepest since the 1920s – included a £6.4 billion drop in VAT income following Chancellor Alistair Darling’s decision to cut the rate to 15 per cent last November, according to the HM Revenue and Customs annual report. The Treasury was shown to have overspent by £24 billion on last autumn’s banking rescue. Its accounts were rejected by the official auditor because the insurance the Government granted to the troubled banks Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland was not approved by parliament.

A sharp rise in mortgage lending last month reflects seasonal trends rather than a sustainable pick-up in the housing market, economists have warned. Total mortgage lending hit £12.3 billion in June, the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed, more than 17 per cent up on May’s figure of £10.5 billion, and the highest monthly total this year. Early summer is traditionally the busiest time of the year for the housing market. However, last month’s mortgage lending was still 48 per cent lower than in the same month last year, and the CML said that over the three months to the end of June, total mortgage advances had been just £33.3 billion, no more than in the first quarter of the year, which was the worst period for the sector since 2001. Howard Archer, the chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said these factors would combine to mean that housing market activity would remain below historical levels for ‘some time to come’, adding that the cost of some mortgage finance had actually begun to increase over the past month or so.

The locations of four new eco-towns were announced yesterday – Rackheath, Norfolk; north west Bicester, Oxfordshire; Whitehall Bordon, east Hampshire; and China Clay near St Austell in Cornwall. Communities and Local Government said the government would provide £60 million in funding to provide infrastructure to support the towns and a further £5 million would be made available for councils to work on proposals for a ‘second wave’ of six more towns. Construction is not expected to start until 2016.

Commercial law firm EMW Picton Howell has said that the number of planning applications withdrawn by developers has increased dramatically in the past year as local planning authorities put pressure on developers to withdraw so they can meet government time limits for determining applications. The percentage of planning applications being withdrawn, called in or turned away has jumped by 63 per cent since 2001/02.

Housing benefit should be converted to a £17,000 lump sum grant to enable poorer people to put down a deposit on a home, think-tank Demos has suggested. In a report, Recapitalising the poor, it argues that it this would help end the ‘culture of dependency’ that dominate poor communities. It also said that part of the income tax paid by low earners should be ringfenced and put into a private pension to remove them from the system of means-tested pension credit when they retire.

Recent figures from the Association of Residential Lettings Agents and National Landlord Association have found 65 per cent of estate agents experiencing an increase in the number of tenants struggling to pay their rent, and as many as one in three landlords have tenants in arrears.

Research out today has found first-time buyers are taking out loans to afford the deposit. Thirteen per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds are considering buying a property for the first time in the next year, but of those, 16 per cent say they will consider taking out a loan to cover the deposit. Critics have warned that it is a ‘dangerous move’ and have called for lenders to assess the affordability of a mortgage on a case by case basis. The average deposit for a first-time buyer is £32,000.

Banks and building societies are under pressure to cut their mortgage rates, after the Libor rate fell to its lowest level in more than 20 years. Conversely the average two-year tracker rate mortgage increased from 3.73 per cent a month ago to 3.77 per cent this week, and lenders have also pushed up the price of fixed-rate mortgages to their highest level for at least 20 years. Critics have accused lenders of being ‘unfair’ to homeowners and threatening the recovery in the housing market. Libor is the rate at which lenders lend to one another.

Meanwhile a book from the University of Warwick has found the UK’s housing market was ‘encouraged’ by the government. The investigation said the government wanted to meet the cost of support an ageing population by encouraging people to invest in housing assets as a way of accumulating wealth and making them less reliant on public pensions when they retire.

A strategy to avoid people becoming homeless by providing earlier intervention has been unveiled by the Welsh Assembly. The 10-year homelessness plan will change the way housing services are delivered so they can respond faster to people in need – to stop them from losing their homes and for those who do find themselves homeless for access to improved accommodation and other services.

A government Green Paper on care for the elderly suggests that people may have to pay up to £20,000 to insure themselves against the cost of being cared for at the end of their lives. The number of old people requiring care will be swelled by another 1.7 million by 2026 and the cost is expected to skyrocket.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband is to announce new legislation to meet UK targets on energy emissions. The biggest investment is expected to be in renewable energy –  wind farms and nuclear power stations –  but energy companies will pass on the cost which is estimated to add £230 to household energy bills.

Meanwhile, Scotland would be 100 per cent renewable in the 20 years, according to a report The power of Scotland renewed. Renewable energy could meet between 60 and 143 per cent of Scotland’s annual electricity demand by 2030 by investing in grid upgrades, interconnections and electricity storage, the report says.

A Communities and Local Government select committee has reported that if the government is to meet its house building targets it must bring in new measures to support the mortgage market. The committee warned that the Treasury’s asset-backed guarantee scheme was not enough to kick start the housing market, and was ‘doomed to fail’. It also criticised the government for focusing on owner occupiers at the expense of the private and social rented sector.

Research by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has found that estate agents believe house prices will rise in the coming three months to counteract a drop in supply. It was the first time since May 2007 that agents predicted an increase in house prices. RICS also found signs of an increase in market activity, with the average number of sales completed by each estate agent rising to 12.7 in the three months to June, up from 11.7.

Figures from Communities and Local Government show that house prices fell 12.5 per cent in May. London saw the biggest decline in England with prices falling 16.3 per cent, while Northern Ireland suffered the largest drop with prices down 23.2 per cent between April and May. Howard Archer, an economist at HIS Global Insight, said he believed a further decline of 10 per cent was possible.

Government figures obtained by the Conservatives show that there were 3.9 million cases of antisocial behaviour last year – or nearly 11,000 a day in England and Wales. The majority – 2.3 million cases – were reports of ‘rowdy or inconsiderate behaviour’, with 254,000 reports of nuisance neighbours. The Conservatives have said they would axe anti-social behaviour orders and introduce night time ‘grounding orders’ instead.

Early intervention resolves more than three-quarters of antisocial behaviour cases, whereas using anti-social behaviour orders resolved just 0.1 per cent of cases, according to research by Housemark. Top performing landlords also took just 45 days to resolve antisocial behaviour cases, compared with an average of 61 days.

More than a third of refused asylum seekers have been destitute for more than a year and two-thirds of these came from countries with ongoing unrest and would find it difficult to return, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust has found. The research recorded 273 destitute people during a four week period in April and May, including 30 children, and found that two-thirds of those surveyed came from four countries – Zimbabwe, Iran, Eritrea and Iraq.

Britain’s housing market will stay in the doldrums until the middle of the next decade, and there is a 30 per cent chance that prices will take until 2020 to return to their peak before the crash, a consultancy firm predicts. PricewaterhouseCoopers said recent signs of a recovery in the market which had been detected by a fresh survey of estate agents were a ‘false dawn’. John Hawksworth, the chief economist at PWC, said prices would experience a gentle decline for the next 18 months and then pick up slowly over the following years. ‘Although the estimated average UK house price overvaluation of around 25 per cent in mid-2007 has now been largely eliminated, our analysis suggests that house prices could still have further to fall over the next year.’ He added that house prices were likely to fall by a further 5-10 per cent.

Banks have been accused of exploiting homebuyers by making the highest profits on mortgages for more than 20 years. Despite the Bank of England’s rate being maintained at an historic low of just 0.5 per cent, borrowers can expect to pay up to 8 per cent on some fixed rates, with many lenders increasing interest on deals even as their own costs fall. Politicians and mortgage experts condemned the rises at a time when 1,000 families a week are being evicted from their homes, saying banks were ‘stoking up problems for the future’ amid predictions of a rise in repossessions.

Taxpayers are sitting on losses of nearly £11 billion from the government’s ‘investments’ in Britain’s banks, the body charged with overseeing them admitted yesterday. John Kingman, chief executive of UK Financial Investments, said every family in the country now had more than £3,000 invested in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. The value of those holdings has plunged to £24 billion since the government stepped in, although the situation is considerably better than it was in February, when the unrealised loss stood at £18 billion. The report says taxpayers’ losses at Lloyds at the end of June stood at £6.2 billion, with RBS worth £4.7 billion less than when the Government stepped in.  The taxpayer has a 70 per cent stake in RBS and 43.3 per cent of Lloyds, but this is set to increase through the two banks’ involvement in the Treasury-backed asset protection scheme to cover them against what could be multibillion-pound losses on bad loans.

Up to 200,000 public sector jobs will be axed after the next general election, unions fear. Union chiefs admit that at least a third of the 572,000 extra jobs created since Labour won power could go. Thousands more working for private firms on contracts also face the axe as the government battles to cut costs.
Schools and hospitals, where spending has almost doubled since 1997, are in the firing line. TUC boss Brendan Barber said cuts now would ‘choke off’ any hope of recovery. He added: ‘The best way to close the deficit is to go for growth and increase the tax take from the super-rich.’

The government is to press ahead with its eco-towns project, despite continued opposition. On Thursday it will finally name three or four sites in the South and South West that have been chosen to proceed. They are located in four Conservative councils: East Hampshire, St Austell in Cornwall, Cherwell District Council and Greater Norwich. Each is said to have local authority backing and will therefore have an easier route through the formal planning consultation. However, John Healey, the Housing Minister, will admit that the timetable has slipped and say that the first towns of 5,000 to 10,000 homes each will be ‘under way’ rather than built by 2016 as originally envisaged. The remainder will be ‘under way before 2020. The eco-town programme has been beset with difficulties since a shortlist of 15 was proposed 14 months ago. Developers have pulled out of several projects because of local opposition and lack of finance, while many of the sites have been deemed environmentally unsuitable.

A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader Stephen Greenhalgh suggested a range of ‘radical reforms’ including wanting to see social rents rise to market levels; welfare payments based on need rather than rent paid; an end to tenure for life by those in need of social housing; five-year reviews of existing tenants to check on changing circumstances; and demolition of some of the borough’s largest council estates.

Housing minister John Healey has told a Common’s Treasury select committee that he would consider extending the homeowner mortgage rescue scheme beyond its current two-year limit, if the economy continues to struggle beyond 2010. He also rejected accusations that the government had been ‘complacent’ with its support for those at risk of repossession, although he warned that ‘a certain level of repossessions is inevitable’ in a recession.

The prime minister has written to housing professionals to reiterate his commitment to housing as one of his top priorities. He said that it was the right time to commit an additional £1.5 billion to build an extra 20,000 affordable new homes in the next two years, and by making ‘tough decisions’ such as reallocating departmental budgets we can ‘meet our obligations to a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society’.

However, the government has confirmed it has dropped its affordable house building target from 70,000 to 55,000 a year in the next two years, despite the additional funding, as it is now paying ‘more of the cost per house’ due to the huge reduction in section 106 agreements and other forms of private investment. The government expects to complete 55,500 affordable homes this year and 56,450 in 2010/11, but only 13,500 a year will be for social rent rather than the 45,000 out of 70,000 homes originally planned. Communities and Local Government refused to provide a regional breakdown of the reduced targets.

Communities secretary John Denham has announced a £70 million migration impact fund, funded by a levy on migrants, that will be used to tackle illegal working practices and reduce local pressure on public services. Nearly 200 projects will receive funding with every region benefitting, but the amounts each receives will be weighted towards areas where migrants have had the greatest short-term impact. Funding in housing is being targeted on cracking down on rogue landlords.

Redrow and Barratt Developments accused the banks of downgrading valuations on new properties to restrict lending. Redrow said the practice of down valuation by surveyors representing mortgage lenders was ‘widespread’ and posed a ‘major obstacle’ in the recovery of the housing market. It blamed the gap in valuation for about two-thirds of its current cancellation rate of 20 per cent. A spokesperson for Barratt said the policy was creating a ‘two-scheme mortgage sector’ and added that house builders were asking for new builds to be valued ‘appropriately’.

The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has claimed that designing eco-towns to be more inclusive would cost no more if it was factored into the planning process early on, and has produced guidance on how to it. It says that eco-towns should provide for all inhabitants regardless of age, disability, faith or gender, and avoid creating barriers that prevent them from becoming part of their communities. A spokesperson for TCPA said it was essential for each town to be socially as well as environmentally sustainable.

The number of council and housing association homes for rent is at its lowest in 50 years, a Shelter Scotland report has found. Building pressure warns of a ‘growing chasm between the number of homes needed and the number available’. It estimated there were 142,000 households on the waiting list for council homes, and said the right-to-buy scheme was partly to blame for the shortage as more than 135,000 homes had been sold under the scheme in the previous decade.

Great Places housing group manager Jon Snape will be on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London on Sunday morning with a message about affordable housing. He was picked at random to take part in Anthony Gormley’s One & Other project and plans to dress in pyjamas, and give away breakfast while wearing a message that says ‘everyone deserves a great place to wake up in’.

In the first court ruling of its kind a vulnerable family has been told they can stay in their home as owner occupiers or rent it for life, after almost losing it in a repossession sale and rent back scam. The case, bought before the court with Shelter’s help, saw the judge brand the sale and rent back company Repossessions Stopped as ‘dishonest’ for promising the family could stay in their home forever. Within two years of the company selling the property on, the new owner defaulted on the mortgage and the house was repossessed, with the family nearly evicted.

The Bank of England (BoE) has kept the cost of borrowing unchanged at 0.5 per cent for the fourth month in a row. It added it was not planning to extend its quantitative easing scheme.

Nationwide has launched a new 125 per cent mortgage, for those in negative equity and wanting to move house. The building society described the product as a ‘niche’ offer and said that the new mortgage would only be available to existing mortgage holders and would allow homeowners to ‘carry over’ their negative equity. Experts say it could help people stick in their homes who need to move, and expect other lenders will launch their own versions in the coming months.

Research from the National Association of Estate Agents has revealed that nearly one in four people claim they are unable to get a mortgage due to the tighter lending criteria being used by banks and building societies. More than half of those asked believed that they would have more change of getting a mortgage if lenders had relaxed tough restrictions and accepted lower deposits.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said lending has started to pick up again after the number of home loans for house buyers rose by 4 per cent in May. In year on year figures this is still 28 per cent lower than a year ago. The CML said that nearly three-quarters of new mortgage are being taken out at fixed rates, the highest proportion since August 2007, and movers typically borrow 67 per cent of the value of the property. First-time buyers still need an average deposit of 25 per cent, and figures indicate that 80 per cent of first-time buyers under the age of 30 were receiving financial help from their parents.

Two of the UK’s largest house builders Redrow and Barratt Developments have said that the continuing lack of mortgage availability is hampering the recovery of the housing market. They said that while the market has stabilised too many would-be buyers are struggling to get the finance needed, and the drought in the mortgage market was ‘without doubt… a major obstacle to the recovery of the housing market’. Both companies are facing a big decrease in their average selling price.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has said private developers, local councils and housing associations must work better together to manage land supply more efficiently to boost the supply of affordable housing. It argues that a poor grasp of land economics, an over reliance on section 106 agreements and an aversion to risk is hindering the provision of land, and added that housing organisations must invest in skills to value land, assess a project’s viability and negotiate better.

New publicly funded homes built in the London will have to comply with minimum internal space standard major Boris Johnson said. The London housing design guide established six key areas of design that new development will have to incorporate from 2011, including minimum space standards around 10 per cent higher than the Parker Morris benchmark, better integration of developments with the space around them and to reduce crime; and a greater mix of dwelling types to care for London’s diverse living needs.

A panel has been set up to ensure that new homes meet the needs of an increasingly ageing population. The housing our ageing population panel for innovation comprises of architects and specialists who will research good practice across Europe that will create housing for older people and improve the availability and choice of sustainable homes and neighbourhoods.

A recent decision by Rushcliffe borough council to refuse planning permission for a 1,200 home development on green belt land has been overturned by communities secretary John Denham. The local authority had thrown out the scheme on the grounds that it would have created traffic and resulted in a loss of green belt land, however, the secretary of state said there was an ‘urgent need’ for the release of land for housing in Rushcliffe.

According to the latest National Housing Planning and Advice Unit’s survey on housing, attitudes to new housing developments need to change ‘as a matter of urgency’. More than half of current homeowners (51 per cent) would object to new housing being built in their area, despite continuing home affordability issues where as many as 90 per cent of young people cannot afford an average first-time buyer’s house. By comparison less than a third of non-homeowners (31 per cent) would object. Despite the average house price fall of 22 per cent, almost nine out of ten young people cannot afford to buy an averagely priced first-time home.

House builders are drip feeding homes on to the market so they don’t flood the market and cause further price falls industry experts warned yesterday. The practice is ‘widespread’ among large scale builders such as Barratt, and they blamed a lack of competition between developers of large sites for the problem, as greater competition would bring more houses to the market.

Consumers could face having their mortgage and bank accounts branded with a health warning system, similar to the traffic lights system for food, in the government’s expected response to the financial crisis to be laid out today. Under the proposals the riskiest products, such as mortgages with ‘teaser rates’ which rise sharply once signed up, will be marked with warnings over the possibility they may damage household finances in the future.

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday that financial service firms must make sure their customers understand what they are letting themselves in for when signing up for mortgages, consider loans and other products. The OECD has just released new guidelines designed to avoid a repeat of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and subsequent credit crunch that caused the worldwide recession.

Shelter has published a report promoting different ways to increase the development of affordable housing. A range of contributors cover a number of subjects including how to attract development finance to the industry, flexible tenure and the private rented sector.

A new website has launched showing how people can work together to legally borrow empty properties from their owners and return them to use. The site shows how to get hold of and borrow the empty properties from the owners, and where to go for funding, how to arrange repairs and how to turn renovating a property into a training opportunity.

The Conservatives have called for the eco-town programme to be scrapped saying that developers are running scared from the plans. Shadow housing minister Grant Schapps said the ‘small print’ of the draft legislation published last week reveal that plans for the eco-towns had now been pushed back to 2020, but John Healey said he would be making an announcement within the next two weeks on all potential eco-town sites.

The number of rough sleepers in London has risen by 15 per cent in the last year, fuelled by an increase in Eastern Europeans who have lost their jobs and now make up one in seven of those living on the street. According to the figures from Broadway more than 4,600 rough sleepers were counted in the capital last year, up from just over 4,000, with around 60 per cent of street homeless being British born.

Homeless charity, Crisis, has been investigating the experience single rough sleepers face when seeking help from local councils. Most were discouraged from filing in formal applications to register as homeless, and many were deterred from even seeing a housing officer. A spokesperson from the charity said that there was widespread practice of councils using the priority need test as an excuse not to give single homeless people the minimum levels of advice and assistance to what they are entitled to.

Nearly half of people having difficulties paying their mortgage do not seek advice, often because they feel their problems are not serious enough or they do not know where to go for help. Of those who sought advice, two-thirds went to their mortgage lender, while one in four got help from Citizens Advice. The Financial Services consumer panel which produced the figures and which advises the Financial Services Authority said there was an ‘urgent need’ for more investment in information and advice, so consumers understand that debt advice agencies must not be ‘seen as a last resort’.

An independent report has found that a government programme providing housing support to vulnerable and homeless people has resulted in ‘significant’ savings in the cost of other services. The report said the £1.6 billion invested through Supporting People has saved other services more than £3.4 billion through reduced costs in homelessness, tenancy failure, crime, health and residential care. It has also lead to other benefits including reducing the risk of social exclusion, increasing educational chances for children and improving the quality of life for vulnerable people.

For the first time in nearly 20 years English local councils are to begin constructing homes, following last week’s announcement by John Healey allowing town halls to retain rent from council housing and receipts from the right-to-buy scheme. Analysts predict that nearly 140,000 homes will be built in the next decade, as local authorities start applying for £350 million in direct funding made available from the government. Birmingham is planning to build 500 council houses a year within three years to become the biggest council house builder in England.

New research from the National Housing Federation reveals north England’s rural population has been ‘overlooked’ by policy makers, while facing the dual challenge of ‘staggeringly’ high house prices and ‘crippling’ low incomes. The research found that 86 per cent of the north’s most expensive house price districts are predominantly rural and almost 66 per cent of England’s most deprived rural areas are in the north. The federation has called for the government to create a ‘northern rural way initiative’ to combat the current economic crisis.

City regulator the Financial Services Authority announced a sharp increase in penalties to come in from February 2010. Under the new rules individuals will face a minimum fine of £100,000 while companies will be hit with penalties worth up to £50 million. An insider said that the FSA had to increase its fines because ‘insufficient account’ had been taken in some cases of previous enforcement action, often as the companies stood to earn much more in profit flouting the rules than they stood to lose from a fine.

Meanwhile mortgage fraud has topped £97 million in the first six months of the year, research by accountancy firm BDO Stoy Hayward has found. Twenty-one mortgage fraud cases have already been heard this year, and the Financial Services Authority has warned that it is causing instability in the lending market.

Which? magazine has called for the Financial Services Authority to ‘name and shame’ lenders charging customers with exorbitant mortgage arrears charges. Which? wants the list submitted to judges hearing repossession cases and the culprits fined, with the revenue going to help borrowers access independent debt advice, and it has submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for the names of the lenders. It also wants lenders to provide an itemised breakdown of additional costs, the suspension of arrears charges where consumers have made agreements to pay off the debt, and a review of charges by the FSA.

The number of mortgage products on the market has dropped to its lowest level on record, with homeowners having a choice of just 2,282 deals. First-time buyers have even less choice with 1,195 products available according to moneysupermarket.com, compared with the height of the property boom in August 2007 when more than 30,000 mortgage deals were available, and almost 20,000 for first-time buyers alone.

The decline in property values and a drop in sterling has sent London tumbling down the list of the world’s most expensive cities for expatriates, according to the Mercer survey. London came third out of 143 cities in the poll last year, but has dropped to the sixteenth most expensive city this year. Tokyo topped this year’s rankings, followed by Osaka, Moscow – last year’s most costly city – with Geneva and Hong Kong taking the other two places in the top five.

The mental health problems faced by rough sleepers has reached a ‘critical level’ following a rise in the homelessness rate, St Mungo’s has found. Among its clients, 40 per cent were diagnosed with depression and 22 per cent were diagnosed with schizophrenia, which St Mungo’s called ‘the tip of the iceberg’. It warned that the government’s target to end homelessness in London by 2012 will be missed unless the link between mental health and homelessness is broken. There has been a 15 per cent rise in the homelessness rate in London in the past year – the equivalent of five new rough sleepers a day.

The number of tenants struggling to pay their rent is rising, according to the Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA). Around 65 per cent of agents have seen an increase in renters falling behind on their rent during the past six months, while 93 per cent said they had seen a rise in the number of tenants haggling with landlords about the level of rent. ARLA said the increases were not just about tenants experiencing financial problems, but were also likely to be due to people cashing in on falling rents.

The Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA) has also questioned the new repossession proposals for rented property. It has called for the government to be clearer about its intentions to implement the schemes into law ‘at the next opportunity’ saying the timeline is far too vague. It also says that seeking to notify tenants seven weeks before repossession hearings could encourage tenants to break their contracts and seek new landlords too early.

Guidance on renegotiating section 106 agreements is to be released by the Homes and Communities Agency later this month. The guidance for local authorities and developers is needed following a High Court ruling last year that quashed Blythe Valley borough council’s 30 per cent affordable housing policy and a similar High Court challenge currently against Wakefield Metropolitan district council.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, which has been researching housing allocation for the Equalities Commission since last year, has concluded that Gordon Brown’s pledge to provide more social housing for local people is ‘flawed’ and could open up councils to legal challenge. Its unpublished interim report notes that there was no evidence that allocation policies discriminate against white groups and there was only a small amount of evidence that some policies unintentionally discriminate against minority ethnic communities, but the perception otherwise could trigger legal challenges against local authorities by those who feel unfairly treated.

The Tenant Services Authority is offering social landlords small grants to help them develop ‘local deals’ with their tenants. Grants up to £9,000 will be made available to housing associations, councils and arm’s length management organisations to improve services in response to local needs.

Communities and Local Government will reveal before 21 July which of its programmes’ budgets are to be cut to help fund the £1.5 billion housing package, and has suggested the Homes and Communities Agency may bear the brunt. Director-general of housing and planning at the department has insisted that reports that the Decent Homes programme would be plundered are not true. He said he would give details before the summer recess of parliament starts.

The number of people over 65 filing for bankruptcy has almost tripled in the last five years, figures from the Insolvency Service suggests. The firm believes the increase is down to more people entering retirement with unpaid debts, and also blamed rising food and energy prices. During the same period the total number of bankruptcies for the entire population rose 89 per cent.

A Sunday Times investigations has found that members of the royal family have been granted ‘sweetheart’ property deals worth millions. The Crown Estate, which manages £7.3 billion of land and property owned by the crown, allowed several properties to be sold cheaply to Prince Andrew, who subsequently sold them on at substantial profit, while securing rent-free residences for his two daughters. Crown Estate says it took legal advice for the valuations, but ‘special circumstances’ meant such properties cannot always get the highest market valuation.

A new report has suggested that the European Commission could be asked to help deliver eco-towns in England. The report recognises that eco-towns in Europe have benefited from strong local authorities, who are ‘deeply committed to the sustainable development agenda’ over a long period, and the current credit crunch will add to delivery and implementation problems. The report concludes that a work programme is needed for the next three years which seeks to improve UK capacity and bring together public and private stakeholders who can work across sectors and boundaries.

A report commissioned by the Howard League for Penal Reform has called for a reduction in the number of prisoners and the closing of some jails. The report said that prison and probation funding should be diverted to tackling the causes of crime, and suggested that short-term prison sentences be replaced with community-based responses. The report said that overcrowding threatened to ‘bring the penal system to its knees’ with the prison population doubling in the past two decades to an all time high of around 84,000.

John Healey has revealed that the government plans to withdraw backing for the open market homebuy scheme, saying he wants to concentrate on new build home ownership schemes instead. The homebuy scheme has so far helped more than 14,000 people onto the property ladder and plans to close it have angered housing associations who administer the schemes.

The newest member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee David Miles has said the worst of the recession and housing slump is probably over. He said his ‘hunch’ was that expectations in the housing market look a bit better now than a few months ago and that we have seen most of the ‘overall aggregate’ house price falls. However, he added that Britain is set for an ‘anaemic’ recovery with little chance of returning to buoyant growth in the short term.

Homeowners paid a record amount off their mortgages in the first three months of 2009 according to statistics from the Bank of England. An estimated £8.1 billion was repaid – the highest sum repaid since records began in 1970 – taking the total for the year to the end of March to £76 billion. From 2000 to 2008 homeowners had borrowed more than £300 billion against the raising value of their properties.

The number of people defaulting on loans has risen and are expected to increase in the coming months, a Bank of England survey has uncovered. A poll of banks and building societies found more people unable to repay mortgages and other debts because of rising unemployment. However, financial institutions expect the availability of credit to rise in the next three months, and households are likely to be offered and demand more secured credit. A rapid return to the pre-credit crunch lending levels remains extremely unlikely.

Home secretary Alan Johnson has pledged to revive the use of antisocial behaviour orders (asbos) in the most extreme cases of intimidation and harassment. In a package of measures designed to turn around the 30 per cent drop in new orders issued, he promises to cut delays of up to two years in getting the courts to issue an asbo, make it easier for problems to be reported and provide more counselling support for victims. He admitted that the government had been ‘to a certain degree, complacent’ in recent years on this issue.

Planning applications received by district-level authorities in England in the past quarter are down 30 per cent in year on year figures, Communities and Local Government data shows, with decisions made on residential developments of 10 or more homes falling by 46 per cent. The CLG acknowledged that the recession has had an impact on the number of applications, but added it would continue to streamline the planning system in anticipation of the recovery.

Housing associations could face higher loan repayments and reduced access to funds as a result of tougher banking rules, housing experts fear. The Financial Services Authority wants lenders to hold higher levels of capital and liquid assets in reserve, and this may push up interest payments across social housing as loan agreements allow lenders to pass the costs of additional regulation to their customers, and with ‘virtually all’ of the sector’s loans having the clause, costs for associations are likely to be impacted.

Two housing associations have merged to create one of the UK’s largest housing groups with more than 30,000 homes across the South and South West. Sovereign housing group and Wessex housing partnership became the first group amalgamation since the Tenant Services Authority was formed.

The government is likely to break its promise to build 70,000 affordable homes a year by 2010-11 according to its own figures. A Guardian analysis of this week’s pledge to build more affordable housing indicates that the government will miss its target by at least 13,550 a year; while only 13,450 of the 56,500 new homes built a year will be council housing, down from 45,000 out of the original 70,000 planned. Figures also show that despite the government building fewer homes the programme will cost more money.

A Campaign to Protect Rural England study has accused developers of concreting over greenfield land, rather than build on brownfield sites, because the land is easier to build on and the houses can be sold for more. The CPRE wants tighter restrictions on the scale, location and timing of greenfield land release and more incentives for developers to build on brownfield land first.

The Confederation of Business Industry has said that delays in the planning system are discouraging major investment in renewable energy. It said little progress has been made in quickening up the planning process and that business was being prevented from investing in the new low-carbon technology. It wants the government to publish national policy statements to boost investor confidence.

Meanwhile, the financial incentives given to councils to speed up housing planning applications to meet the 13-week target has had some ‘perverse’ consequences, a parliamentary committee has found. The MPs found that while the incentives have helped double the number of developments, they have had a number of unforeseen side effects such as a greater proportion of rejections. 

The Financial Services Authority has warned a number of insurers have recently increased the premium charged for mortgage payment protection insurance or reduced the level of protection offered, at a time of rising unemployment. The City watchdog said some insurers have increased premiums by between 30 and 50 per cent, while others have cut the maximum monthly payout and increased the waiting period before people can claim from 60 to 90 days.

A Salvation Army report has warned a generation of young people are binge drinking to such an extent they are at risk of social exclusion and homelessness. The report, Seeds of Exclusion 2009, says it is concerned for a new generation of young homeless adults who appear to be self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Relationship breakdown and lack of supportive relationships are cited as the main reasons for homelessness. However, the research indicated that 59 per cent of those questioned reported an alcohol addiction, rising to 66 per cent among the 18- to 25-year-olds.

The government has announced that financial support to students will be frozen next year because of ‘difficult economic times’. The decision has been described as a ‘kick in the teeth’ for young people who argue the cap in grants and loans represented a real term cut and would increase student debt level.

The long-term regeneration legacy of the 2012 Olympic Park in London has been called into question by the London Assembly’s economic development committee. In a progress report the committee concluded that without a ‘credible anchor tenant’ for the stadium, the creation of 10,000 new homes in the community, several schools and many jobs was just ‘aspirational’ and benefits may not appear for ‘many, many years’ after 2012.

The number of young people not in employment, education and training (neets) is expected to total one million by September research by the Local Government Association has found. Much earlier intervention is needed to identify young people who are at risk of dropping out and councils should be allowed to fund employment or training projects, the LGA says.

The rising cost of fuel, food and public transport has hit the poor hardest. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculates that the cost of living for those on a minimum household budget is rising faster than inflation. The costs for a single household on a low-income budget were up 5.3 per cent this year, followed by 5 per cent up for pensioners and couples with children.

John Healey has announced plans to set up a new central team to fast track urgent home repossession cases from next month. He defended the government’s effort to help struggling homeowners saying it has put into place help ‘at every step of the way’ and to ensure that lenders can only repossess homes as a last resort. More than a thousand households a month were being helped under the mortgage rescue scheme, the minister said.

However, consumer groups and charities including Shelter have been speaking before a Treasury select committee looking at how mortgage lenders handle repossession cases. They have called the government schemes ineffective and accused the Financial Services Authority of being too slow in penalising lenders who are guilty of bad practice, and of failing to name and shame culprits. They said that lenders were also failing to disclose enough information on how they manage arrears cases. Kay Boycott, a Shelter spokesperson said that as many as 120,000 people could lose their homes by 2011 in a ‘second wave’ of repossessions.