ROOF Blog

Gordon Brown is expected to announce a proposal that will require councils to take account of applicants’ connections to the area when allocating homes, as part of a multi-million pound plan to build more affordable homes. The prime minister hopes the move will increase stock in both council housing and affordable private homes in the coming two years, while creating thousands of new jobs in the process. Funds will be made available to the HomeBuy Direct scheme which helps first-time buyers into the market, while councils will be given discretion to provide social housing to local people even if they are not considered priority cases.

In Scotland, the government has promised to pour £9 million into a new social housing pot. Communities minister Alex Neil announced the payout at a construction conference in Edinburgh, saying that 17 Scottish local authorities will benefit, and more than 1,300 new council homes will be built this year as a result.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has approved plans to redevelop one of the capital’s largest and most deprived estates. The Ferrier estate in Kidbrooke will be replaced with 4,000 new homes, of which 38 per cent will be affordable housing.

Public confidence in the housing market is higher than at any point since September 2007 and the Northern Rock bail-out, a survey from propertyfinder.com found. Around 60 per cent of respondents thought house prices would rise by May 2010, while 32.5 per cent thought prices would fall and a further 8.5 per cent said that prices would be unchanged in 12 months’ time. However, 0.7 per cent of first-time buyers expected prices to grow in the next 12 months, and only 9 per cent though mortgage are affordable. 

An upcoming report from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) calls for those involved in delivering affordable housing to see the recession as an opportunity to review and improve policy and practice. Councils, in particular, were told they currently lack the skills to assess the economic viability of affordable housing schemes, and needed to make more realistic demands.

Research by the Bank of Scotland has found the recent falls in property values has been good for key public sector workers. The survey found that Scotland was one of the most affordable areas in the UK, and workers such as teachers and police officers could now afford to buy in 39 per cent of Scottish towns, up from 15 per cent in 2007.

And in London mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled plans to halve overcrowding in the capital by 2016. In the latest draft of his housing strategy he promised to cut overcrowding in the social housing sector and to deliver more family sized affordable homes, and added that it will make London the first city in Britain to make such a commitment.

The planning system must not become a ‘tool for promoting economic development’, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said, setting out its vision for the future of the English countryside. The CPRE describes the countryside it wants to see by 2026, its centenary year, as where urban regeneration contributes to green space, affordable housing, vibrant neighbourhoods and people-friendly transport. It expects more than two million ‘high quality homes’ will have been built and energy efficient buildings and low carbon communities would be commonplace. It also wants more planning decisions to be taken locally.

More than 100,000 young adults will leave rural towns and villages in England in the next three years due to a shortage in affordable houses research by the National Housing Federation (NHF) has found. It estimated 103,000 people aged 24 to 35 will migrate out of rural places to urban locations by 2012, because they cannot afford to live there. Around 100,000 new affordable homes are needed to be built to meet demand in rural areas in the next 10 years. The Federation is launching a new campaign today aimed at tackling the housing crisis in the countryside.

A committee of Scottish MPs has accused the Scottish planning system of exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing in rural Scotland. The rural affairs and environment committee said the planning system is burdened by a centuries-old belief that the countryside should be protected from development, and called for an end to the ‘entrenched conservative planning culture’.