ROOF Blog

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee on Thursday voted to keep rates unchanged at 0.5 per cent and to continue with its £200bn quantitative easing programme as further signs of stabilisation emerged across the economy. The decision was widely expected, with the Bank having signalled it intends to make big decisions on monetary policy only when the forecasts in its quarterly inflation report are available. February, therefore, could see the first change in the Bank’s monetary stance since its November decision to increase the scale of quantitative easing –- which has taken the form of purchases mostly of government debt, funded by the creation of money – from £175bn to £200bn. With about £7bn left of that left, most economists expect the Bank to halt the programme, having already slowed the pace from £75bn every three months to £50bn earlier last year to £25bn in November.

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.

Figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have revealed almost 30,000 social homes are being left empty for more than six months, despite the 1.77 million families waiting for social housing. The Lib Dems have been calling on the government to cut VAT on repair works to make it cheaper to bring empty homes back into use. Recent Communities and Local Government figures indicate that there are 327,857 long term empty properties in England.

England is receiving a disproportionately high number of immigrants to the UK a cross party group of MPs has found. Between 1991 and 2007, 2.15 million immigrants arrived in England, compared to 105,000 in Scotland, 56,000 for Wales and 27,000 to Northern Ireland. England’s population could increase by nearly 10 million people in the next 20 years, of which seven million will be immigrants.

The government has revealed how much councils are paying to house homeless families. Topping the list is Newham council in London which paid £71 million out of a total homelessness spend of £87 million, in one year to lease homes from private sector landlords, nearly double the second highest spending council, Westminster. The top ten spending councils on homelessness were all in London. In total English councils spent £327 million on temporary leasehold properties out of a total homelessness budget of £943 million in 2006/07.

And still on the Budget – the £100 million announced by Alistair Darling to help councils start building houses has been described as a ‘drop in the ocean’ after it emerged that as few as 900 homes will be created. Last year just 310 properties were built by councils in England, and since 1995 no local authority has built more than 500 homes a year. However, there are currently 4.5 million people stuck on the housing waiting list across England.

Figures from Communities and Local Government show the annual rate of decline in house prices hit 12.3 per cent in the three months to February. The December to February quarter saw a fall of 4.8 per cent, compared with the previous quarter’s decline of 4.3 per cent. The drop was most pronounced in Northern Ireland where values tumbled 19.4 per cent over the year; Wales also saw a big drop of 12.5 per cent; England faced an average price decline of 12.4 per cent; and Scotland down by 8.6 per cent. It was the sixteenth month in a row that the annual house price rate had worsened.

The average Band D council tax bill in England is set to rise by 3 per cent – the lowest rise in 15 years, Communities and Local Government confirmed. Overall, the average council tax per dwelling will increase by 2.6 per cent. The Local Government Association urged the government not to use its powers to cap councils this year, ‘given that townhalls have made such efforts to keep council tax down this year’.

Birmingham City Council became the busiest council in the country for the second year running, with eight regeneration schemes going ahead last year, with projects ranging from a new hospital to regeneration of a railway station. Second busiest local authority was Milton Keynes.

Almost nine out of 10 councils are experiencing or anticipating an increase in demand for social housing, research from the Local Government Association has found. Of the council leaders surveyed, 57 per cent say they are seeing more people in need, while a further 31 per cent say they expect an increase in demand. Only 6 per cent said they have neither experienced or expect any increase in demand. The problem appears worse in the North West of England, with 83 per cent of councils saying they are already experiencing increased demand, compared with 42 per cent in the South East.