For someone involved in housing for 50 years, it is impossible not to feel embarrassed and ashamed by the appalling conditions lived in by some social tenants as exposed by Daniel Hewitt’s ITV documentary, Surviving Squalor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIu8bftQfGQ The ‘regulator’ (sic) should be throwing the book and the ‘Ombudsman’ (equally sic) should be down on them like a ton …

ITV’s releases ‘Surviving Squalor: Britain’s Housing Shame’ on Sunday at 10:15pm. Unquestionably highlighting some of the most horrific housing conditions endures by people and families living in social housing in the UK.  Red Brick has long forewarned about the return of squalor. The national scandal that has been the neglect of housing. But as housing associations and local …

England’s housing system has failed. We need to press the reset button on housing – let’s start with planning. Rampant house price inflation. Hundreds of thousands of people trapped in unsafe buildings. Tens of thousands of families made homeless during a global pandemic. Our housing system is broken. You would think given the state of things, that fundamental …

We have a mountain to climb to win the next election, but housing has to be at the heart of Labour’s vision as the best country to grow up and grow old in Labour is the Party of safe, secure, affordable homes to rent and buy. We have a proud record in national and local government, upgrading social …

‘I can say it is cold, very cold in my room. I have got no access to the kitchen, no fridge, no basic things that I need.’ Many complex social challenges have not received much focus over the last 18 months while we have been grappling with the pandemic. But they have continued to bubble away out of …

The UK has a proud historic record of providing a safe haven for people fleeing war, conflict and persecution, including Ugandan Asians in 1972, Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s, people fleeing the Holocaust in Germany and central Europe in the 1940s. There are many ways in which Tory led governments since 2010 have betrayed that tradition, …