ROOF Blog

Local authorities should not adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach when granting planning permission for housing, and should move away from the approach to planning policy that led to large-scale construction of high-density flats on urban brownfield land, according to a report from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU), a quango set up to advise government on housing policy. The NHPAU looked at the development of housing in a variety of densities and locations and concluded that while high-density housing was sometimes the most valuable, it often was not.

Thousands of frail and elderly people are living in care homes that fail to meet the most basic standards, a damning report has revealed.

In the most comprehensive assessment yet of homes in England, new watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found that more than 10,000 people are living in squalid conditions and receiving inadequate care.

The CQC has threatened to close 400 homes unless they are improved immediately. It described a further 3,500 homes, where 70,000 people reside, as ‘adequate’, the second-lowest rating.

It criticised councils for sending people to the worst homes, apparently with little regard for their welfare.

Local authorities foot the bill for about half the 440,000 care home residents.

One in four English local authorities would take more than 10 years to house everyone on their council housing waiting list, it was revealed today.

Shelter says a total of 82 authorities would take between a decade and 33 years to clear their waiting lists, or until 2019 to 2042.

With the national waiting list reaching almost 1.8 million households, but only just over 270,000 homes let nationally last year, the average time for all councils to end their lists would be almost seven years.

Of the 355 local authorities, Barnet, in North West London, would take the longest to house everyone on its waiting list at more than 33 years, followed by Redbridge in East London at more than 32 years, and Brent on 25 years.

Shelter has blamed the severe shortage of affordable homes, and has called on political parties to make housing a top election priority.

Demand to build council homes is far exceeding government expectations, putting pressure on the Treasury to release extra cash as part of the spending review next month.

The pressure amounts to an end to the 20-year effective moratorium on council house building, amid a new cross-party consensus to build council homes.

Nearly 90 local authorities, including large Conservative ones such as Birmingham, have bid to build a further 3,500 council homes as soon as possible.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) had planned and budgeted for a demand to build 1,200 homes.

The bids come on top of 49 councils that were given the go-ahead by CLG in the summer to build 2,200 homes on the condition that they were on site by March next year.

The unexpectedly large number of local authorities bidding in the second round represents the largest potential council house building programme in more than two decades.

Conservative councils are less likely to grant planning permission for new homes than other local authorities, according to research by McGrigors, the commercial law firm.

The gap is not large – 63 per cent of applications were approved by Tory-controlled councils compared with 69 per cent in authorities under Labour, Liberal or no overall control.

But given that the Conservatives control half of all councils with planning permission powers and are likely to make further gains in elections in May, the outlook could well be an even more severe housing shortage in the long-term, the law firm said.

On top of that, Conservative control is most heavily concentrated in the south-east where housing shortages are most acute.

Six of the 10 local planning authorities with the lowest approval rates, all below 45 per cent, were run by the Conservatives. They were Castle Point, Wycombe, Chiltern, Wokingham and Reigate and Banstead in the south east, and the Forest of Dean.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has compiled a list of 200 words and phrases it has banned so that staff can ‘communicate effectively’. The list includes ‘predictors of beaconicity’, ‘re-baselining’ and ‘benchmarking’. LGA chairperson Margaret Eaton said the public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon.

Diversity should be at the heart of the development process, and local authorities should look again at the different ways in which people experience buildings and places. New research from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) argues that planning and architecture professionals need to mirror the diversity of the society they serve, while locals authorities should ‘go beyond their public duties’ on race, gender and disability equality and exceed legal requirements.

Social landlords in the 20 areas with the longest social housing waiting lists have bought only 20 properties between them through the government’s £200 million rescue package. Just four local authorities have bought any stock at the national clearing house programme set up in May this year to allow providers to buy up private developers’ unsold stock. In total more than 1,500 homes have been bought across England, but just 18 were in the areas with the highest percentage of households waiting for a social home. A spokesperson for Communities and Local Government said there were more deals in the pipeline to buy up homes ‘at the right prices in the right places’.

Meanwhile, London Councils have called on the government to provide £350 million to help local authorities safeguard the capital’s housing market and provide 4,000 homes for rent. London Councils propose setting up a new housing agency, Homes for London, which would operate separately to normal council housing and which would help boroughs buy existing or planned housing from developers or housing associations which would be offered for five or ten years at intermediate or market rents. The tenants would have the opportunity to buy the property at the end of the tenancy, with profits distributed back to central and local government.