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Total Search Results: 53
Figures spark immigration debate
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 19 November 2023
New immigration figures being published by the Goverment today will confirm that levels of immigration are continuing at about 200,000 a year, says immigration campaigner Sir Andrew Green. The Government’s own projections show that the UK population will reach 70 million in 20 years’ time. Of the extra ten million,…
Interest-only loan danger
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 19 November 2023
Borrowers with interest-only mortgages could be faced with crippling debts and negative equity in the falling property market, according to new research. Figures from insurer LV show about 41 per cent of homeowners with such loans - about 530,000, owing £30 billion - gambled on rising property values and cashing…
Charities call for support package
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 19 November 2023
Ahead of next week’s charities’ financial crisis summit with third sector minister Kevin Brennan, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) has issued a 16-point plan to kickstart the debate about how government can best support the sector. In addition to a £500 million emergency aid package to…
Asylum-seeker charities ‘playing the system’
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 18 November 2023
Immigration minister Phil Woolas has attacked lawyers and charities working on behalf of asylum seekers, accusing them of undermining the law and ‘playing the system’. Woolas described the legal professionals and NGO workers as ‘an industry’, and said most asylum seekers were not fleeing persecution but were economic migrants. ‘The…
Record inflation fall to 4.5 per cent
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 18 November 2023
Inflation tumbled at a record pace in October to 4.5 per cent, down from the 16-year peak of 5.2 per cent in September, official figures show. A sharp fall in transport costs, coupled with lower fuel and food prices, helped to push down the Consumer Price Index to the lowest…
Rents forced down by glut of homes
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 18 November 2023
A flood of unsellable homes has forced down rental prices as homeowners instead turn to renting their properties, according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. The number of housing transactions is at the lowest level since records began as banks limit the availability of finance to buyers. Some 50…
£200 million drive to eradicate rough sleeping
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 18 November 2023
Ministers will today commit the government to eradicating rough sleeping throughout England by 2012, the first firm deadline for dealing with the most acute manifestation of homelessness since Tony Blair promised in 1997 to reduce the number of rough sleepers to ‘as close as possible to zero’. The official headcount…
Crisis warns of rising homelessness
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Monday 17 November 2023
The UK is facing a ‘homelessness timebomb’ as a third of people would lose their homes within three months if they lost their job, a survey said. The poll commissioned by the charity Crisis revealed 33 per cent of the working population could face homelessness in as little as three…
Gordon Brown’s £1,000 present for families
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Monday 17 November 2023
Gordon Brown is preparing to rush through plans for a huge programme of public spending and tax cuts before Christmas. The Prime Minister will claim that world leaders’ agreement with his ‘fiscal stimulus’ plan is proof that this is the way to kickstart the British economy. Mr Brown has come…
Miliband to press energy firms for price cuts
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Monday 17 November 2023
Energy companies will be urged to pass on savings to their customers in the wake of massive falls in oil and gas prices when Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, meets leaders of the big six providers today. The minister will also ask them what progress they have…
King predicts long recession
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Thursday 13 November 2023
The Governor of the Bank of England was thrown on the defensive yesterday after the deepening economic slump forced it drastically to rethink its forecasts for Britain's prospects. Mervyn King was forced to deny that he had been caught out by the pace and scale of the country's slide into a…
Energy market offers poor deal
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Thursday 13 November 2023
Consumers who switch energy and phone suppliers have been getting a very poor deal since the government abolished price controls, a report by MPs says today. The Commons public accounts committee concludes that a quarter of all people who switched electricity suppliers ended up paying higher bills. The findings come…
Darling says downturn will soon be over
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Thursday 13 November 2023
Alistair Darling will forecast a short, sharp recession in his crucial pre-Budget report in 11 days’ time, with the economy contracting by more than 1 per cent next year but bouncing back strongly in 2010. The Chancellor said we were going into recession, but he remained confident about getting through it. Mr…
Brickmakers lay off workers
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Thursday 13 November 2023
Britain’s biggest brickmakers have laid off more than 1,200 workers and started to send home hundreds more on a temporary basis as the housing crisis takes its toll on the supplies sector. Hanson has axed 600 staff as it permanently closed two plants, mothballed two others and plans to either…
Unemployment hits highest level for 11 years
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 12 November 2023
The total number out of work has climbed to 1.825 million - the most since November 1997, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics. The number of unemployed people rose by 140,000 in the three months to September, leaving the unemployment rate up 0.4 per cent to…
House builder Taylor Wimpey adds to gloom
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 12 November 2023
Taylor Wimpey sees no prospect of recovery in the short term. The company has now shed 1,900 workers this year as it tries to cope with the downturn in the housing market. The figure, revealed by the housebuilder yesterday, is more than twice its previously announced job losses, which totalled 900 at…
Brown to target credit card firms
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 12 November 2023
Gordon Brown promised action last night after credit card companies rejected calls to reduce interest rates, some as high as 69 per cent, after last week’s shock cut in the Bank of England’s base rate. In a clear signal that the prime minister is determined to make credit cards his next battleground…
200,000 jobs barred to non-EU migrants
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Wednesday 12 November 2023
Two hundred thousand skilled jobs in Britain will be closed to non-European migrants from November 27, when the new points-based immigration system comes into effect, the Home Office announced yesterday. The official shortage occupations list, published yesterday, which will be opened to skilled workers from outside Europe, covers 800,000 jobs,…
Home sales plummet to new low
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 11 November 2023
Britain’s housing market was hit by a fresh blow yesterday when it emerged that home sales plunged to a new low last month and the Nationwide Building Society said that its net mortgage lending had fallen by 70 per cent during the past six months. The latest survey from the…
Tories plan tax breaks
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 11 November 2023
Business leaders would be offered tax breaks by a Conservative government to persuade them to recruit more staff, David Cameron will announce today as he puts plans to ease the ‘pain of mass unemployment’ at the heart of his economic agenda. The Conservatives say the measures – which are expected…
Jack Straw orders inquiry into repossessions
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 11 November 2023
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has ordered an investigation into a legal loophole that allows lenders to repossess a home without a court order. The inquiry was announced in response to a High Court ruling that supported a decision by GMAC-RFC, the General Motors mortgage lender, to sell the property…
Banks increase credit card costs
Location: ROOF Blog
Published: Tuesday 11 November 2023
Banks have increased interest rates on credit and debit cards held by tens of millions despite the cost of borrowing falling to its lowest level for more than 50 years. The Bank of England has almost halved its base rate from 5 to 3 per cent since May, but during…
Lost leader
Location: Opinion Columns Politics
Published: Tuesday 4 November 2023
Caroline Flint steps out of the firing line
Party time
Location: Opinion Columns Politics
Published: Tuesday 4 November 2023
Westminster mole, ROOF's parliamentary correspondent reports
See no evil
Location: Opinion Columns Politics
Published: Monday 29 September 2023
Westminster mole, ROOF's parliamentary correspondent reports
Out of sight…
Published: Monday 29 September 2023
Large numbers of rough sleepers are being swept off the streets and into hiding - living in the rubbish chutes of council tower blocks, derelict garages in Hackney or behind the huge bins of a Westminster supermarket
Haus proud
Location: Features
Published: Monday 8 September 2023
New houses in Germany are cheaper than their British counterparts and on average 50 per cent larger. Given that the two countries have a similar population density, what's going wrong in the UK? By Oliver Marc Hartwich
Grub’s up
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Monday 1 September 2023
I don't mind sharing my food, but give me my own room, says Louis Theroux
Alexander technique
Location: Opinion
Published: Monday 11 August 2023
Danny Alexander will be a hard act to follow as a thorn in the side of DWP
Does not compute
Published: Wednesday 30 July 2023
ROOF invites readers to vent spleen under the cloak of anonymity
Selective caring
Published: Wednesday 30 July 2023
Thousands of people stuck in temporary accommodation are not getting the legal support they are entitled to, report Tania Tam, Nigel Balmer and Julie Christian
What lies beneath
Published: Thursday 24 July 2023
Housing associations’ global accounts may look rosy, but analysis reveals some worrying trends. By David Montague
Golden opportunity?
Location: Features
Published: Thursday 24 July 2023
A multi-billion pound development programme offers housing associations the chance to consolidate their position as the country's leading social housing provider - but the risks to expansion leave no room for complacency, argues Sebastian Taylor.
An ill wind
Location: Features
Published: Thursday 24 July 2023
What happens if associations are left with swathes of low-cost home ownership schemes that no one wants to buy? Sebastian Taylor talks to the Corporation's Peter Marsh
Des res
Location: Features
Published: Tuesday 15 July 2023
A ‘dash for trash’ could harm the prospects for affordable housing - but developers need not sacrifice design in the push to increase supply.
Race card
Location: Opinion Columns Politics
Published: Monday 12 May 2023
Westminster mole, ROOF's parliamentary correspondent reports
Tenants export
Location: Opinion
Published: Monday 12 May 2023
ROOF invites readers to vent spleen under the cloak of anonymity
No refuge
Published: Saturday 1 March 2024
Birmingham’s Somali community has grown dramatically during the past five years. But many end up living in squalid private rented housing at the bottom end of the market, reports Kevin Gulliver
Live and let buy
Published: Saturday 1 March 2024
More retired homeowners are choosing to sell up, invest the capital and rent instead, says Peter Girling
Rental revival
Published: Tuesday 1 January 2024
It is now cheaper to rent than it is to buy an equivalent sized property in all parts of the country. Steve Wilcox reports on the resurgence of private renting
Size matters
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Friday 1 September 2023
High density housing may work in Europe. But that’s because new homes on the continent are much bigger than those in the UK. Here, it’s a disaster waiting to happen, says Inge Kettner
Prevention: the best cure?
Published: Monday 1 May 2023
Hal Pawson has conducted extensive new research into homelessness prevention for the ODPM. In this article, he draws on the findings to respond to ROOF’s recent investigations into gatekeeping. He says that, while concerns about gatekeeping may continue, prevention is an effective way of tackling homelessness
Up to the job?
Published: Sunday 1 January 2024
Peter Kemp looks at whether the new local housing allowance can solve the problems that bedevil the current housing benefit system
Too many terraces
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Tuesday 1 November 2023
In the last issue of ROOF, Anne Power wrote in defence of Victorian terraced housing. All very well, says Keith Kintrea, but parts of the older housing stock are already failing tests of social and economic sustainability
Wrong to buy?
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Thursday 1 September 2023
ROOF never liked it. Many others blame it for today’s marginalised communities and record homelessness. But Steve Wilcox warns against a knee-jerk reaction to the right to buy
Tangled up in rules
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Tuesday 1 March 2024
Steve Wilcox spots changes in accounting conventions that could have serious consequences for housing associations and the drive to build more homes
Blunkett conned us
Location: Opinion Guest writers
Published: Monday 1 March 2024
Making asylum seekers destitute? That wasn't the law we passed, says Neil Gerrard
This is not the 1990s
Published: Sunday 1 September 2023
House prices are not about to repeat the boom and bust of the early 1990s, says Steve Wilcox, because mortgage costs remain affordable
