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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

What does an NHS fit for the future need from the ten-year housing plan?

The Prime Minister and Chancellor visit Coventry Hospital by No.10 Downing Street is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Since 2006, the vision for the NHS has been to shift care closer to home. Development of the 10-year health plan goes further; patients should be able to say:

  • I can stay healthy and manage my health in a way that works for me
  • I can access the high-quality and effective care I need, when and where I need it
  • My care is integrated around my needs and I am listened to
  • I am treated in a fair and inclusive way, irrespective of who I am

For these to be true, what should we expect a ten-year housing plan to include? And how will it support the planned shifts in health care: from hospital to community; sickness to prevention; analogue to digital?

It’s worth restating what we mean by a healthy home. We mean homes in which the population can start life, live and work, and age well in. A healthy environment, free from all hazards (not just damp and mould), which will increasingly include overheating. A suitable environment, with space and design that is inclusive, accessible and adaptable to everyone’s needs. A stable environment, providing a sense of safety and security. Genuinely affordable; people can afford to live there and aren’t pushed into poverty. Homes located in a healthy and supportive neighbourhood.

It’s also important to understand that building new homes will not enable healthy homes for all. 80% of the homes we will be living in by 2050 have already been built. We have some of the oldest housing in the developed world, and the highest proportion of inadequate housing in Europe.

Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS drew attention to the housing crisis, highlighting the significant impact that homelessness and poverty have on health outcomes, the increase in homes with damp problems, and noting the link with poor mental health.

It’s estimated that almost one third of NHS patients live in circumstances that present a risk to their health and wellbeing, including people living in unsafe, overcrowded, unsuitable and poor-quality homes, people living in fear of losing their home, in temporary accommodation or on the streets.  These circumstances directly impact on patients’ access to, experience of, and outcomes from health care and, with the largest workforce in England, this will include many NHS staff.

National housing, homelessness and welfare policy is a considerable way off supporting ambitions for the NHS. There’s no evidence of a systematic consideration to where people live, their health and wellbeing, the impact of unhealthy homes on the NHS, other public services, productivity and the economy.

Labour has an opportunity to change this, taking the ‘health in all policies’ approach described in its manifesto and Devolution White Paper. Improvements in the population’s health and wellbeing and health equity should be the primary outcomes of the housing plan.

A ten-year housing plan that supports the ambitions for the NHS would:

Describe a vison for healthy homes, sharing outcomes with the ten-year NHS plan and the national care service.

An independent housing strategy committee, and cross-departmental Homes and Health Board would inform, oversee and deliver necessary systemic and operational changes, including measuring the impact national and local housing decisions have on health. Data would be gathered at a granular enough level so that housing, health and care systems at all geographies can act.

In the shorter term, it would require and resource localities to develop an integrated housing, health and care strategy for local populations who would benefit most from joined up homes and services, such as people with disabilities and those in inclusion health populations.

Recognise the role of the housing workforce in improving health and wellbeing and  commit to workforce development, integrated with that for the NHS and social care.

This would begin with investment in local housing and public health leadership capacity and capability, including planning, occupational therapy and environmental health professions.

This would enable localities to better integrate homes with health and care, targeting combined resources to patients who need it most, and would quickly see a return on investment.

The frontline housing workforce, particularly in homelessness and housing support roles, is filling gaps in the NHS and care workforce. Plans to end homelessness must consider the health and wellbeing of this workforce, and what the future holds for them.

Take a health-led approach to improving, adapting, renewing and regenerating existing homes.

Existing homes across all tenures, including temporary and supported housing, must benefit from health-led improvements, underpinned by the more granular local understanding of homes, health and wellbeing, and sustained and flexible funding so that localities may target resources effectively. This would include:

  • Retrofitting alongside other measures to improve warmth and reduce emissions
  • Tackling other hazards which result in avoidable ill-health, including falls and fire
  • Adaptations and assistive technology, enabling disabled people, people with long term health conditions, and people as they get older to live independently
  • Climate adaption, including building resilience to new extremes of flood and heat

Immediate action should be taken to improve local system’s knowledge of, and capacity to act on:

  • Unhealthy homes for patients whose health and wellbeing is a priority for the NHS, enabling safe, timely and effective transfers of care from NHS and care settings to the community, and ensuring that people experiencing homelessness are not lost to health services
  • Unmet housing, care and support needs, enabling people to live independently

New homes and regeneration must meet the TCPA’s healthy homes principles and include 90,000 social rented homes a year, specialist and supported housing, and technology enabled homes. A review is needed of the impact of social housing allocations and lettings policies and practice for their impact on the population’s health and wellbeing.

Raise awareness and enable access to national and local information, advice and guidance services, to empower people to understand how their home impacts on their health and wellbeing, and options available to improve matters.

Developments in technology in the home need to enable residents to have choice and control.

Community capacity to improve homes should be invested in, whether this is through a local handyperson scheme, or community-led housing.

For one-third of NHS patients, home is not just a social determinant, a building block, of their health; it determines how effective the NHS is in preventing, treating and managing ill-health. An NHS fit for the future demands a ten-year strategy for homes that is honest about how old and unhealthy our homes are, and commits to action now. Care closer to home cannot be achieved through new build alone.

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How building Council housing can help Labour beat Reform UK

How to beat Reform UK? It’s the question many in the Labour Party are now asking, with increasing desperation.

Alienated from mainstream politics and politicians, Reform UK supporters see Labour as the ‘establishment’ with little concern or understanding for their lives or their problems. To reach Reform supporters, Labour needs to show in practical, concrete ways that it ‘gets’ Reform voters’ concerns. Labour needs to deliver practical and concrete improvements across the country.

The answer is straightforward. Labour needs to build more council homes and create more non-graduate jobs. And we can do both at the same time using the same money.

Building more council homes in every part of the country will directly benefit those families who are currently in housing need. Those who are overcrowded or who need a smaller home. Those who are homeless and living in expensive and substandard private rented accommodation. Those whose children and grandchildren are paying through the roof to private landlords for very basic accommodation.

Many of these families have lost faith in mainstream politics after 14 years of failed Conservative governments when few new council homes were built and many continued to be sold off. We need to show, by our actions, that the needs of the non-graduates living in non-metropolitan parts of the country are just as much a priority for Labour as anywhere else.

The new council homes Labour builds should benefit the widest range of families. When new council homes are being built, existing residents should know that they will benefit, too. A central message should be that the new council homes are not just for ‘other people’ or ‘outsiders’, they are for people like YOU. Using local housing allocation policies in operation on many Labour councils already, half the new homes should go to those families who have been waiting patiently for a bigger or smaller home. The other half should go to those who are currently homeless or have been languishing on the housing waiting list.

Building new council homes needs a range of traditional non-graduate skills – bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, scaffolders, painters, decorators, carpenters. Just watch an episode of Nick Knowles’ DIY SOS to see the wide range of non-graduate trades needed to build or renovate a house.

Using existing construction companies, local subcontractors and their employees will benefit, too. Many of these subcontractors will be small businesses and will get a real boost by Labour’s council house building programme. Local council house building programmes will give small construction companies the long-term commitment needed to plan their investment.

Working with local colleges, we need a massive construction skills training programme, equipping people of all ages with a skill that will form the basis of a lifetime working career. Construction skills give access to jobs in every part of the country and to any country in the world. You can work for a company or be your own boss, working hard to build a business that gives you and your family financial security and independence. The construction workers benefitting from Labour’s council house building programme will have a real and tangible stake in the economy and in society.

When the new residents move in, some will want new furniture, new carpets and new white goods. Buying these will help local shops and help grow the wider economy. Others will want to paint or paper the walls and add a few personal touches, benefitting local DIY shops.

And don’t forget that the new council tenants will be paying rent to the Council which will then be used to pay back the money it borrowed to build the new homes.

As John Harris wrote in a recent ‘Guardian article, the politics are very basic,

“Four decades ago, many of Reform UK’s older supporters had their lives transformed by Margaret Thatcher’s policy of encouraging people to buy their council houses at huge discounts; now, their daughters, sons and grandchildren live with the dire housing crisis that policy caused. If you understand at least some of the rising ire about immigration as fear of even more competition for scarce resources, housing is right at its heart: in my experience, no other issue comes near its impact on everyday life.”

We have it in our power to embark on the biggest council housing programme since 1945. If we don’t take this opportunity and then lose out to Reform UK in 2029, it will be our own fault. Let’s not make this mistake!

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

What does the housing sector need from Government to deliver on their long-term ambitions for housing?

As Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Housing Forum I work with organisations from across the whole of the housing sector – from construction companies and architects, to housebuilders, housing associations and local authorities. I also keep abreast of housing policy – helping our members understand new developments and ensuring the government understands the needs of the sector.

The last year has been a fascinating time to have one foot in industry and one in policy circles. On the policy side, it’s the most positive I’ve ever seen. The new government has come in with huge enthusiasm to tackle the housing problems in the country, a willingness to burn political capital in doing so and – above all – a willingness to listen. It’s been greeted with pretty much unanimous enthusiasm from across the sector too. Yet at the same time, in the sector itself, the financial challenges are huge. After 15 years of high house price growth, the market sector is struggling with the slow-down alongside a sharp rise in construction costs, whilst the social housing sector struggles also with increased costs of building safety and maintaining existing homes, rising costs of borrowing and grant rates that just aren’t stacking up to support the building of much-needed new social housing.

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So what does it need to do to turn this tough situation around and build the new homes, including social housing, that we need?

The first and biggest answer has to be funding. Keen to establish themselves as fiscally responsible, Labour came to power making few promises that involved any spending – and there have been no major funding announcements for housing as yet, though the sector awaits the Spring Spending Review with trepidation. The next Affordable Homes Programme will be the main source of funding for developing new social housing. Grant rates need to be high enough to bridge the gap between construction and land costs, and the amount that landlords can borrow against future rental income. If the government also wants to sector to prioritise social rented housing over other options (Affordable Rent, or shared ownership) then this requires additional funding, as the subsidy required per dwelling is significantly higher.

The other way to support the sector is to support the finances of social landlords, so they’re better able to raise capital. The Building Safety Fund ensures that leaseholders do not have to pay for remediating fire safety issues, but social landlords have not been protected and are having to pay from reserves. If landlords are having to spend their own reserves on remediation, they cannot commit this same money to developing new housing, and nor can they borrow if their capital position is not strong enough. Fully funding building safety work for the social housing sector would be the first step to getting some of the biggest social housebuilders, who have the expertise – and in many cases already own the vacant sites – to build again.

Supporting the social housing sector in this way will not only help build the new social housing we need, but will also help the whole of the housing sector moving towards the 1.5 million new homes target – especially while the market for sales remains stagnant.

But Government doesn’t have unlimited funds, and housing is by no means the only call on them. So what else could government do that doesn’t involve funding?

Planning is a big part of the answer, and the new Government has hit the ground running with planning reform. The changes are welcome, and will now need time to bed in, alongside maintaining the strong rhetoric to ensure all areas play their part in delivering against the new targets.

Government could look to reduce the subsidy needed for social housing by looking at social rents. The previous government reduced rents for four years, meaning that they are currently significantly lower in real terms than they were in 2010. The G15 (group of the largest housing associations in the London area) has calculated that 29% of’ homes are currently below target rent, losing them £67.7m each year in rental income. They could also consider allowing higher rents for more energy-efficient homes, something that we’ve called for at The Housing Forum, to help leverage in some private finance for retrofitting. Increasing rents could see a backlash from tenants (as well as increased costs born by the DWP via higher benefit claims). A key concern would be the impact on those affected by the benefit cap – abolishing the cap would ensure that the welfare safety net works effectively for all types of families to help them afford their rent.

And finally, looking to the longer term and to a higher rate of housebuilding across many years, the government needs to ensure that the sector has the skilled workers it needs:

  • Increased investment is needed in training and developing the workforce. FE Colleges must create training facilities and training that meets with the skills requirements of employers and the sector.
  • Staff in FE colleges and universities need to undertake continued professional development to ensure that they are up to speed with the current practice and regulations around construction.
  • Government should make dramatic improvements to careers guidance in schools to help teenagers make informed decisions about the later stages of their education, and much better knowledge of the types of job opportunities that are out there. Work experience, part-time jobs, internships and visits to local employers can all help.
  • There needs to be clear pathways for young people from school into the many different careers in construction, which includes both building new homes and maintaining and upgrading the existing stock. The London Homes Coalition has done some good work on this area.
  • The Government should not overlook the need of mid-career switchers – who have potential to expand their skillset into growing areas, such as green technology. This requires more flexible approaches to retraining and funding.

Overall, it’s been great to see such as strong focus on housing from the new Government, particularly around planning reform. But it’s now time for them to put their money where their mouth is in terms of the affordable housing sector.

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Building homes connected to infrastructure, the benefits of Transit Oriented Developments

What is a Transit Oriented Development

A Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is an urban planning approach that focuses on creating high-density, mixed-use communities centred around public transit hubs.

At its core, TOD integrates transport infrastructure, such as rail, bus, or metro stations, with surrounding land use to create accessible, liveable communities that are well-connected by public transit and complemented by high-quality public spaces.

Over the past few decades, TOD projects have been implemented across the globe, showcasing the concept’s broad appeal and effectiveness in reshaping urban landscapes.

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Key Benefits of TOD:

  • Environmental Sustainability: TODs promote public transit use and reduce car dependency, which leads to lower greenhouse gas emissions and a reduced overall environmental footprint.
  • Reduced Traffic Congestion: By encouraging the use of public transport, TODs alleviate road congestion, contributing to more efficient urban mobility.
  • Economic Development: TODs stimulate local economies by fostering vibrant communities, increasing foot traffic for businesses, generating employment opportunities, and potentially enhancing property values.
  • Improved Quality of Life: Residents of TOD communities enjoy reduced commute times, convenient access to amenities, and a stronger sense of community, contributing to a higher quality of life.
  • Placemaking: Through the creation of pedestrian-friendly pathways, non-vehicular routes, and public plazas, TODs prioritize walkability and cultivate dynamic public spaces that enhance the sense of place and community engagement.

Overall, TODs represent a forward-thinking approach to urban development that balances the needs of transport, environmental sustainability, and community wellbeing.

Types of Transit Oriented Developments that will boost Homebuilding

TODs offer a powerful approach to addressing the dual challenges of providing new housing and fostering sustainable urban growth. When considering TODs for housing development, it is essential to examine them at two distinct levels:

1. New Transit Hubs
TODs centered around new transit hubs are typically long-term projects that involve complex planning, substantial investment, and public-private collaboration. In the UK, for instance, the Crossrail project has demonstrated the potential for such developments to transform urban landscapes, both in terms of transit infrastructure and land value.

These types of TODs leverage the increased land value generated by new transit infrastructure, with private developers playing a key role in financing the project over the long term. Although these developments are generally not “quick wins,” they are integral to the delivery of new residential stock and the broader vision of sustainable urban growth.

2. Existing Transit Hubs
TODs developed over and around existing transit hubs offer an opportunity for more immediate impact on residential development. Given the existing infrastructure, these developments can be realised more quickly, at a lower cost, and with fewer challenges compared to new projects centered on greenfield sites. Expanding and enhancing local infrastructure within established areas is typically easier and more cost-effective than building these services from scratch in new neighborhoods.

Furthermore, the higher density typical of TODs allow for more efficient use of land, offering private developers higher rates of return. This enables the leveraging of additional funding for public and social infrastructure improvements, including social housing.

In both cases, TODs serve as a crucial tool for boosting residential housing supply, promoting public transit use, and driving urban regeneration. However, by focusing on the existing transit hub type it is likely that a real difference can be made in a shorter timeframe by potentially utlilising the thousands of transit hubs all over the country.

What can be done to Enable Transit Oriented Developments around Existing Transit Hubs

1. Over-Station Development

One of the most promising forms of TOD is the redevelopment of existing buildings or the construction of new developments directly above transit hubs, known as over-station development. While this approach maximizes land use in high-demand areas, it often comes with high costs, potential disruptions, and safety concerns, particularly if the transit hub must remain operational during construction.

In some cases, the potential value of land created by developing space over transit hubs justifies the complexities involved. A notable example of such a project is the ongoing development at Euston Station, which demonstrates the feasibility of over-station TODs in major transit centres.

2. Land Acquisition and Cost

Redeveloping land or building new developments around transit hubs in densely populated or high-cost urban areas presents significant financial challenges. The cost of land and construction in these areas can be prohibitively high, limiting the scope for TODs. However, Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) can mitigate this by changing zoning regulations to allow for greater density and height in the areas surrounding transit hubs.

In turn, this could help create a market for new residential and commercial properties in areas that are currently underutilised, driving both housing supply and economic growth.

3. Integration with Existing Transit Infrastructure

For TODs to be successful, they must be integrated with the existing transit infrastructure. This often requires significant upgrades to transit facilities or adjustments to accommodate the increased demand generated by higher-density developments. However, such upgrades can be costly and complex.

Through public-private partnerships, developers can help fund necessary improvements to transit infrastructure as part of the overall TOD planning process. By using ‘planning gain’ to ensure that the financial benefits of TODs are reinvested in the public transit system, they can enhance both the transport experience for commuters and the overall effectiveness of the transit network.

4. Equity Concerns and Gentrification

While TODs can bring numerous benefits, they also present the risk of gentrification, where rising demand for properties near transit hubs drives up housing costs, potentially displacing low-income residents. To mitigate this, LPAs can mandate the inclusion of social housing as part of TOD projects. By setting clear targets for affordable housing and ensuring that developments incorporate mixed-tenure communities, the negative impacts of gentrification can be managed.

5. Overcoming Knowledge Gaps

Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) often face barriers due to a lack of expertise in successfully implementing TODs. To address this, government could develop a Best Practice Toolkit for LPAs. This resource would provide planning guidance, showcase successful case studies, and offer insights into navigating public-private partnerships, funding mechanisms, and land value capture strategies.

Additionally, LPAs and LTAs can establish their own development vehicles to spearhead TOD initiatives. A prime example of this is Transport for London’s Transit Trading Limited Properties, which has accelerated the adoption of TOD in the UK by directly managing land development around Transit hubs.

Conclusion

Enabling Transit-Oriented Developments offers a compelling solution to urban housing shortages while promoting sustainable growth and reducing car dependency. By addressing key challenges such as land acquisition, infrastructure integration, and equity concerns, and by providing the necessary tools and expertise to LPAs, TODs can become a cornerstone of future urban planning.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Labour’s housing strategy needs to inspire confidence in a daunting context

Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives Plan for Change Speech by No.10 Downing Street is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives Plan for Change Speech by No.10 Downing Street is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The forthcoming long-term housing strategy is a huge opportunity for the government to set the agenda for the next five years or more.

The Starmer government is not the first to have bold plans on housing and, as our recent report examined, successive governments have missed their housebuilding targets. Setting a robust strategy will be key to avoiding the same fate.

The new housing strategy should define success and set a clear direction

Beyond general notions of building more homes and improving affordability, few governments over the past two decades have specified what outcomes they want from their housebuilding programmes and why – including their position on critical policy questions such as where they want new homes to go nationally, and roughly what tenure mix they want to end up with.

Without this clarity, reform programmes have lacked drive, direction, clear success metrics (beyond housing targets) and – as a result – credibility. This has often left the housebuilding industry with no clear or long-term trajectory to confidently invest in, instead being buffeted by constant policy churn, made worse by inconsistent leadership. In recent decades housing policy has rarely featured in prime ministers’ top priorities, while housing ministershave been notoriously short-tenured: the last 10 spent fewer than nine months in post.

The government’s upcoming strategy is, then, an opportunity to go beyond this summer’s broad manifesto promises and nail down what success looks like for its housebuilding programme. To inspire confidence, the strategy should set clear objectives, including a 10-year vision for what housing outcomes the government wants to deliver.

These objectives need to be realistic. We recommend that the government publishes analysis setting out – all things being equal – how it expects its policy programme to affect key outcomes such as housing availability and affordability, compared with a counterfactual where housebuilding rates are lower and the tenure mix stays the same.

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The strategy should offer a roadmap for reconciling policy objectives

Successive governments, of all stripes, have failed to reconcile their housebuilding objectives with other important policy objectives that affect development, like building standards and environmental regulations. These have often undermined each other where, for example, regulations conflict or remain unclear, increase building costs at short notice or create bottlenecks in overstretched planning authorities.

The government must engage honestly with these trade-offs and set out how it plans to take forward its commitments to housebuilding, the environment and building standards in a coherent way. To help, it could commission an environmental regulatory body (such as the Office for Environmental Protection or the Environment Agency) and housing delivery experts (such as Homes England, industry stakeholders and/or regulation experts like the Future Homes Hub) to conduct a joint urgent review into how to combine higher building rates with better environmental outcomes.

The strategy should set out a credible path to delivery

The government has committed to delivering 1.5 million new homes in the next five years, requiring a rate of building not seen since the 1960s. It has been bold elsewhere too, stating that it wants new homes to come with the infrastructure that local areas need, and promising the “biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”. Both will require increased investment, whether from government, the private sector or from capturing land values.

The government has taken important first steps to setting a better housebuilding record than its predecessors. It has implemented a new National Planning Policy Framework designed to get enough homes through Britain’s planning system, published proposals to reform planning committees to speed up decision making, and increased planning fees to improve planning departments’ capacity and performance. It has also upped investment in the Affordable Homes Programme and committed to reforming Right to Buy – signals that the government is serious about expanding social housing.

But delivery remains daunting. The housing market is in a downturn. Developers are facing a toxic combination of high interest rates (preventing first-time buyers entering the market), materials and labour shortages, and new regulations – from post-Grenfell fire safety regulations to Biodiversity Net Gain and the 2025 Future Homes Standard. All this adds to building costs.

Likewise, social housing providers are struggling with uncertain rent settlements, difficulties getting private finance in a high interest-rate environment, burgeoning maintenance bills and the costs of new regulations. All eyes are on the government’s long-term rent settlement consultation and the June 2025 multi-year spending review, where the government will set out its long-term investment plans in a tight fiscal context.  

The government needs to navigate these challenges to avoid them becoming major blockers. We recommend that its long-term strategy should include a five-year delivery plan, setting out what it expects to deliver in this parliament and how.

The government must prepare to course-correct when needed

No matter how good the government’s ‘Plan A’ is, several factors could throw its housebuilding programme off course, or indeed offer opportunities to progress it faster or more cheaply. Housebuilders – and housing ministers and their teams – will be watching the UK’s future growth projections and interest rates closely.

Recognising this volatility, we recommend that the government’s long-term housing strategy includes plans to monitor and evaluate progress against its objectives. It could, for example, commit to producing regular stocktakes that assess progress, identify current and emerging delivery risks and opportunities, and prompt the government to course-correct where needed.

The strategy is a chance for Labour to put its bold plans into action

Starmer’s government is not the first to enter office promising bold action on housebuilding. For it to become the first, for some decades, to get it right and deliver a programme that works will require a clear, robust and credible strategy. This is what it should be working to produce.

Read From the ground up: How the government can build more homes for the Institute for Government’s full analysis on how the government can meet its housebuilding targets.

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Rachel Reeves’ war on uncertainty

Today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out the Government’s plans to promote growth and to kickstart the UK’s economy after a decade of stagnation under the Conservatives.

This followed recent announcements from the Government over the weekend which caused a stir across the housing world. First, Reeves announced a plan to introduce a “zoning scheme”, with a presumption in favour of development around train stations to allow homes to be built faster and without unnecessary barriers. And Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook announced a White Paper on Planning and Infrastructure which reduced the extent to which nationally significant infrastructure projects would have to consult with a broad range of stakeholders.

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It is clear that stability and certainty is one of the Government’s main arguments for the UK to be an attractive investment destination. With an unpredictable Trump across the Atlantic, and political instability across Europe, Labour’s sizeable majority and loyal party makes the UK a rare island of (relative) calm.

This stability is clearly being driven from Reeves, famously an accomplished chess player, a game whose stability derives from the fact that it only has three variables: the two players participating and which one begins.

In comparison, our planning system currently resembles more a game of Monopoly, driven by the randomness of dice throws, which card you pick out from the Chance pack, and how happy Uncle Greg is with the Christmas present you gave him. The success of a project can rely on a myriad of factors from the personalities of council officers, the reaction of statutory consultees like fire services and environmental bodies, whether the application is close to an election which may make committee members nervous, and whether objectors have the resources to launch a legal challenge. This uncertainty can hold up even the most basic project by months if not years, leading to added costs and less certainty.

The UK’s discretionary planning system is also increasingly an outlier, with most comparable countries instead opting for a zoning system, where projects are approved more by the letter and less by the interpretation of existing rules. If a housing project is promoted in an area designated for housing, it has to fulfil a set of requirements and is then good to go.

In response to this, the Government’s actions seem to attempt to create something closer to a zoning system, particularly in places where the argument for new homes is strongest; they are introducing planning passports for brownfield sites, releasing ‘grey belt’ land under ‘golden rules’ of development, reducing the extent to which judicial review can hold back housing projects, and increasing the amount of delegation to officers from planning committees.

This is all good as far as certainty is concerned. Fewer vetos within the planning system will create greater stability and expectation of a return on investment for people investing money into new housing. At the very least, this will mean that new homes get built faster. An optimistic take would also say that if investors are surer of their returns they will be more able to set aside money for infrastructure investment around new homes, and providing affordable and social housing alongside homes for private sale.

But, as encouraging as these steps are, it is uncertain how many new homes they will deliver in the long-term, with planning departments still under-resourced, developers weighed down with new environmental and quality standards, and delivery in urban areas hampered with significant viability challenges.

While Rachel Reeves may have claimed a few victories in the war on uncertainty, a few major campaigns await.

A final, implementable version of the Future Homes Standard is needed, so that developers have a clear idea of the environmental standard for new homes and adapt accordingly.

Work needs to be done to smooth the operations of the Building Safety Regulator, which is still rejecting 86% of Gateway 2 applications (at building control stage). An active approach needs to be taken to ensure that the BSR provides clear guidelines, advice and feedback, and to resource them to provide swift and clear verdicts.

And considerable work needs to be done around viability, so that developers and local authorities have a clear understanding of what can be delivered on individual urban sites, how much social housing can be provided from day one, and how long projects will take.

All of this is even before considering more major questions around housing. How can the myriad of documents developers need to submit be simplified? How can local authority and housing association development capacity be increased to deliver the social homes we sorely need? And what work is needed to challenge our existing model of speculative development, to modernise construction practices, and to encourage smaller sites and diversity in the housebuilding sector?

While the economic winds may be challenging for the Government, housing is its one place where it is forging a strong path. Builders are projecting an increase of new homes, including of social and affordable housing, and the industry as a whole is fully behind Labour’s plans.

But, in order to turn this mood music into a plan for 1.5 million homes, the Government needs to grasp the nettle of all causes of uncertainty, and work to create a stable environment for new homes. 

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Survivors of Domestic Abuse need support to stay in their homes with protection from abuse – where that is their preferred option.

Government figures for 2023-2024 identified domestic abuse one of the leading causes of homelessness and as the most frequent reason for loss of the last settled home for those owed a duty by a local authority to relieve homelessness. Risk of or experience of domestic abuse was a common support need among households with children. Single Homeless Project (SHP) notes 60% of homeless adults in temporary accommodation are women. Similarly, 63% of families with children living in temporary accommodation are single parents.

In the critically underfunded circumstances of the violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector and a crumbling legal system abandoned by the Conservative administration, survivors of domestic abuse are frequently left with no option but to leave home and present as homeless. Alternatives should in theory be available to ensure their safety and ability to remain in their home without the perpetrator, but these are either not enforced, or legal funding to obtain them is unavailable due to stringent Legal Aid criteria which excludes many women.

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All too often, leaving home does not end abuse, but it can result in women losing their job, children having to change schools, and families being moved away from health, mobility and social support, when their wish is to remain safely in their home.

Women note that injunctions can be breached several times, but these are deemed ‘minor’ breaches and therefore not enforced.  Survivors without access to funds or Legal Aid are left floundering, trying to navigate the law and conduct their own legal cases whilst holding down a job, and caring for children in adverse circumstances.

Perpetrators, who know how to manipulate these systems to their advantage, continue to abuse, manipulate and harass survivors with the result that women are advised, or compelled to leave home and present as homeless.

As weeks and months turn into years due to the lack of secure, affordable accommodation, survivors are trapped in so-called ‘temporary’ accommodation. Research by Shelter found that 6 in 10 households in temporary accommodation spent more than a year there.

For women in temporary accommodation there is no equality, and there is no chance of career advancement when children are doing their homework in the bathroom, the only room other than the one they live and sleep in, with no knowledge of where they may be living in the next few weeks let alone the longer term.

What Labour is doing to address Violence Against Women and Girls

At the 2023 Labour Party Conference, Jess Phillips MP, now Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, commented that violence against women and girls is the greatest threat to women’s equality.

The Labour Government has committed to halve violence against women and girls within ten years. Recently-announced new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPO’s) and Protection Notices (DAPN’s) are a crucial advance. Women’s Aid commented that the pilot “had the potential to protect those affected but only if properly implemented and monitored”. The Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) welcomed the announcement noting it would have little impact without a “radical transformation in the implementation of these orders”.

Figures published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) showed that there were 123,100 households in England in temporary accommodation in the three months to the end of June – a rise of 16.3% on the same period the previous year.

Alongside a pledge to “go even further to fix these challenges by building the social and affordable homes we need”, the Deputy Prime Minister is also chairing a new inter-ministerial group dedicated to tackling the root causes of homelessness.

The need to support victims to stay in their homes

VAWG sector studies demonstrate that domestic abuse is one of these root causes of homelessness. Prevention includes consistent long-term funding to the specialist sector, implementation and enforcement of orders that assist survivors to remain in their homes where they wish to do so, plus widening Legal Aid to include those currently excluded.

We are in the early days of the new Labour Government. Action is needed here and now for those survivors and children trapped in the cycle of temporary accommodation and to implement the advice of the VAWG sector on prevention. It takes courage and resilience for survivors to speak about the abuse they have experienced.  The point at which a women tries to leave an abusive relationship or to take action against the perpetrator is the stage at which she is most at risk of harm.

Unquestionably there are circumstances where it is essential for women and children to leave home to secure their safety. Refuges, VAWG sector organisations, Women’s Aid, the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) and others are critical to survivor safety and must be adequately funded.

Where a victim has had her options explained to her by a knowledgeable and experienced specialist advisor and chooses to remain in her home, all efforts need to focus on helping her to secure that choice. Injunctions must be enforced, every survivor must have access to legal advice and funding, protection orders need to be better used and social landlords must take action against perpetrators, who need to be held to account.

‘For housing providers it makes sound financial sense to help victims feel safe in their own home but this must be victim led’ Safe Lives/Gentoo

However, the onus should not be on a survivor to leave home to escape abuse, unless that is her informed choice.  We must move away from placing the burden of escape from domestic abuse on survivors and instead hold perpetrators to account.

Instead of asking “why doesn’t she leave?” the question should be “why the hell should she?”

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The Shared Accommodation Rate is prolonging homelessness

Image from Centre for Homelessness Impact

The Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR), the housing benefit rate available to childless, single people under 35, is creating a myriad of challenges for those seeking to move on from homelessness and for the authorities and providers trying to assist them.

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates are not universal. Entitlements vary depending on circumstance, and people under the age of 35 are (unless they qualify for an exemption) offered the SAR – which is calculated to cover the rent of a single room in a shared house or flat, rather than, for example, a self-contained one-bed flat. But as uncovered in No Access, No Way Out, a recent report commissioned by Commonweal Housing, and authored by Becky Rice, the SAR has become a significant barrier to combatting homelessness.

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Introduced by John Major’s Conservative Government in 1996, the then-SRR (Shared Room Rate) capped Housing Benefit for single under-25s at the 50th percentile – enough to cover rents of the bottom 50% of shared room lettings. Fifteen years later, George Osborne ignored the recommendations of the Social Security Advisory Committee and raised the age threshold to 35, whilst reducing the allowance to the 30th percentile (from the 50th) of local room rent averages. The reduction of social housing stock over this period has raised the importance of private routes out of homelessness, whether they exist or not.

For single under-35s, housing options at SAR rates increasingly do not exist. As No Access illustrates, the SAR is not routinely able to facilitate homelessness move-on. Recent London analysis (carried out by Savills) found the rental market totally divorced from LHA rates:

“Annual rental growth of 6.3% in London in 2023 led to the proportion of rental listings below LHA rates falling to a low of 3.1% of total listings by Q4 2023. The recent increase to LHA rates has pushed up the proportion of listings affordable to 5.0% of total listings in Q2 2024. While a slight recovery, this remains well below 30% of the market that is intended to be affordable on LHA.”

The same challenges are being observed all over the UK. The supply shortage is also changing behaviour in real time. Landlords, particularly those that specifically accommodate tenants on benefits, have taken advantage of the tilted playing field. Some are now only renting to claimants over 35 who can access the one-bed rate. Others are going further, with No Access interviewees (particularly those in London) reporting a wave of HMO to studio conversions, whereby houses of multiple occupation (shared accommodation stock, in other words) are split up into small studio apartments, often with shared facilities. This allows the landlord to charge the higher one-bed rate to tenants, and leaves those seeking to exit homelessness on the SAR with fewer, if any, options.

Article 4 directives, which force landlords to gain planning permission for conversion to HMO, are limiting the amount of newly available shared stock entering the market. In these circumstances, homelessness service providers are fishing from an ever-shrinking pond.

The effects of this unavailability are predictable and costly. Practitioners report being forced to use supported accommodation for clients under 35, who do not need such expensive services. As one provider reported,

“[Lack of move-on] blocks our … supported accommodation beds. They’re expensive and you need to keep them for those people that desperately need them. Unfortunately, you do have a case where they’re silted up with people who can’t move on.” (p. 53).

This matched other accounts:

“For under 35s my note says, ‘Nothing available.’ We basically have to go [to] supported accommodation for those people. So, we see a massive amount, we’re [seeing] 45% under 35 and so we know that it’s much harder, nearly impossible, to house in PRS for those under 35.” (p. 27).

Three months in supported accommodation provides one with an exemption from the SAR, but having to wait forces people to suspend hopes of long-term stability, and takes up a place others would benefit more from (not dissimilar to NHS beds being taken up by those healthy enough to leave, but with nowhere else to go). Homelessness support providers even report advising those close to turning 35 just to stay put before seeking move-on accommodation after their birthday.

It’s easy to frame this challenge as an inevitable result of a national housing shortage, exacerbated by landlord opportunism, clunky framework, and urban population growth driven by internal movement and immigration. What is harder to agree on is how to respond.

A potential solution would be to abolish the SAR altogether. This would provide more stability for those moving on from homelessness. Supported housing places would be freed up for those in genuine need, and councils would feel less inclined to hire private relocation companies to send homeless people to other parts of the country with more LHA supply. But tradeoffs are inevitable – the rental market is overheated as it is, and boosting demand to any significant extent would drive further price increases, which may fuel voter backlash.

A roll back option would be to reverse the Osborne measures – lowering the age threshold back to 25 and returning the benefit rate to the 50th percentile. The risk here would be the failure to help 18–24-year-olds, with further reform on the issue probably unlikely. Other measures worth considering include a widening of the exemption thresholds to ease current backlogs and finding a way to challenge excessive use of Article 4 directives. What is clear is the need for revision of some kind, and a halt to the escalating bidding wars between councils (and in some cases, between council departments) for the dwindling number of affordable units.

As is so often the case, issues like these cannot be discussed without returning to the question of general (and publicly owned) housing supply. No Access makes a range of timely recommendations, much broader than the SAR – including the urgent requirement for new homes delivered at scale. SAR revision or abolition, and reform of the LHA more generally, must be linked to this delivery, along with the wider protection of tenants (something Labour have wasted little time on). This Government remains the UK’s best chance at easing and fixing the housing crisis, helping homeless people of all ages move on, and delivering better outcomes for renters more generally. Reform of the SAR is a necessary step in that direction.

Fraser Maclean is Policy and Communications Manager at Commonweal Housing. No Access, No Way Out, researched and written by Becky Rice with Commonweal’s support, can be read here.

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Social housing needs the Streeting treatment

Prime Minister Keir Starmer NHS 10 Year Plan Consultation, image by No 10 licensed under CC BY 2.0

The health service is getting the Wes Streeting treatment of more finance and reform. The case for the same approach for social housing is compelling. Health and housing both determine our quality of lives. The two are interrelated, with homelessness and poor-quality housing costing the health service billions.

2024 saw the lowest Labour vote share among social renters since Ipsos began their election studies.

Also worryingly more social housing tenants said that they voted Reform than any other tenure.

Social renters were the tenure most likely to vote Reform UK

We need to convince tenants that we can make this tangible difference to their lives, by fundamentally changing the power relationship between social tenants and their landlords, drawing upon the insight that Tony Crosland offered about the inequality of decision-making power as far back as 1956 in his book The Future of Socialism.

There are two separate dialogues going on within social housing, one amongst those who manage social housing and another amongst those that live in it.

For councillors and housing professionals the issue is finance. There is simply not the money to make council housing safe and liveable, as highlighted in the Future of Council Housing Report by Toby Lloyd and Rose Grayston and the Labour Housing Group Briefing, Funding Social Housing. The issue for housing associations is that their only way to find the money for safety works is to slash their newbuild programmes, frustrating the Government’s ambition to accelerate the delivery of new affordable homes.

Conversely, at meetings of social tenants, the concern is about the culture of those managing their homes, with tenants feeling disrespected and stigmatised. Angela Rayner referenced this hurt in her 2024 Conference speech saying that she will not allow ‘people like me to be treated like this.’ Those of us responsible for decision-making in social housing think we are doing God’s work, but too often our tenants see us as the enemy.

This anger has intensified post-Grenfell. Pete Apps the author of Show Me the Bodies:How We Let Grenfell Happen has given me permission to share two photographs. The photographs contrast the residents of mixed ethnic origin who died, with the people who were questioned about their culpability who are overwhelmingly white.A representation of structural racism could not be starker.

Social housing is in the same place as the health service, most tenant satisfaction surveys report that the majority of users are satisfied, but a significant minority are not, which is not surprising given that both services are chronically underfunded. Very few people who use the health service and social housing question its existence, they just want the outcomes to be better.

What forces are feeding dissatisfaction?

The first is that housing workers are blamed for the chronic underfunding of the service we provide. We are the human face of a service that is not funded to meet the minimal expectation of tenants to live in a secure, safe and liveable home.

The second is stigmatisation. As the number of people living in council housing has reduced, an historic prejudice against council tenants has hardened into stigmatisation. Many people applying for and living in social housing have had substantial experience of disrespect, stigmatisation and racism. Those of us who work in housing need to be sensitive to these life experiences.

In his only reference to council housing Crosland wrote about how the improved standard of council housing that Labour had initiated in 1946 would reduce the prejudice against council housing. Unfortunately as the stock of council housing ages and the effects of chronic underfunding become more apparent the opposite is happening today.

Breaking down power inequality

As early as 1956 Tony Crosland worried about the power dynamic emerging in large public organisations, foreseeing the potential for those without a voice to resent those who make the decisions that impact on their lives. He described power as a “Stratifying Influence”.

Power is a status-confirming attribute, with a strong influence on collective feelings of superiority and inferiority.

Tony Crosland: The Future of Socialism page 128

He identified two forms of decision-making power, the first is the remote strategic power of those at the top of social housing organisations, who few tenants get to talk to:

Such power, being inevitably wielded to some extent in secret and without collecting the voices of those most affected, has a quality of remoteness and detachment which makes it a particularly fertile source of resentment, and hence, since the disparities between controllers and controlled are so wide of deep class consciousness.

Tony Crosland: The Future of Socialism page 129

The second is the face-to-face power of the person the tenant gets to meet who either makes or communicates important decisions. It might seem odd to the hard-pressed, underpaid worker in a homelessness unit or a call centre that they have power, but this is how it is experienced by the person who needs their help.

Another feature of large organisations is a diffusion of responsibility, which means that responsibility is usually shared, making it easier for those responsible to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. The Grenfell inquiry has highlighted the catastrophic consequences. Those on the ground argued that they were following procedures or instructions made by those higher up; conversely those at the top claimed not to know what was happening and criticised those on the ground for not exercising reasonable judgement.

Whilst Grenfell was a catastrophic event, it is common to hear from social housing tenants frustrated that no-one within the organisation is taking responsibility for sorting their problem out.

This reluctance to take responsibility was evident at the top in the previous Government, with Michael Gove criticising social housing providers, creating the Social Housing Regulator to scrutinise organisational performance, and promoting a more assertive role for the Housing Ombudsman with a focus on complaints resolution, but without providing the necessary resources to improve performance and resolve complaints.

How can transformative change be achieved?

The challenges facing Wes Streeting to transform the NHS are immense. While the NHS is hardly a simple structure, Angela Rayner’s job of persuading, incentivising and cajoling hundreds of different social housing providers to work in the national interest involves an even more complex ecosystem.

Secondly, money is tight. It is more electorally popular to fund the universal health service than needs-based social housing. However, without adequate funding it is impossible to say that the failures of Grenfell “will not happen again”, as Building Safety Minister Alex Norris promised.

There are compelling moral and political arguments for more money. The Blair and Brown Governments found £32bn over 10 years for a Decent Homes programme for council housing. The requirement is now far more pressing.

The power relationship needs to be changed. The majority of tenants are too over-committed to want to be involved in decision-making. However, they want to know that people like them have a voice and that they can go to them when they have a problem. Doing so will affect the way that organisations operate and how decisions are made.

A low-cost and quick win is to create a national body to represent social tenants’ interests, an idea suggested by Crosland to introduce a little democracy into public services. A more long-term task is to create representative bodies at local and regional levels.

A second quick win is to revolutionise the training of everyone who works in social housing, from those on the ground to top decision-makers, as mentioned by Angela Rayner in her conference speech. This must involve the discussion of the structural issues described.

A more controversial proposal is for different housing providers to come together in urban areas to form Neighbourhood Management Boards, with tenant representation. Good housing management is a placed-based neighbourhood activity. Residents are more likely to participate if they can see that they are making a tangible difference to their neighbourhood. The tenants and officers making decisions will be local and accessible. The Right to Manage for council tenants offers an example of how local management could become more formalised, with each local social housing organisation contributing a management and maintenance allowance to the Neighbourhood Management Board.

Crosland understood that cultural change cannot be dictated by national government. Tough decisions will still need to be made, some of them will not be liked by tenants at the sharp end. However, the creation of Neighbourhood Management Boards will create a structure which facilitates positive change.

When Wes Streeting was asked about his political heroes, he replied:

I guess I’m in the modernising tradition of the Labour Party, so I’ve got up on my shelf to remind myself about Crosland’s book on The Future of Socialism which I think is always worth going back to when your party’s in trouble.

Hopefully, we can apply Crosland’s insight before we find ourselves in trouble.

Andy Bates is a member of the National LHG Executive and secretary of the London Branch. He is the retired Executive Manager of a tenant managed organisation (TMO), Leathermarket JMB. He is currently a Board member of Wenlock Barn (TMO). He is a TPAS and Community Led Housing London Associate and a tutor for the Chartered Institute of Housing. 

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How the New Zealand retirement village model might work for the UK

'Woman sitting by window' from the Centre for Ageing Better's age-positive image library

Around 53,400 older people chose to live in a retirement village in New Zealand, and 130 people move in each week. This is around 14% of the over-75 demographic nationally and retirement villages have moved from being boutique and misunderstood to a mainstream housing option for older people. For more information about the sector’s growth, market share and development pipeline, see Retirement Villages Market Review | 2024 | JLL Research

Why have villages been so successful? The village promise has four key components:

  • A warm, dry, age-appropriate place to live (houses in NZ are often large and expensive to maintain);
  • The opportunity to make new friends and try new activities;
  • A high degree of financial security (residents know to the last dollar what they pay to move in, know exactly what they’ll get back at the end, and if they’re living in one of the 70% of villages that offer fixed weekly fees, the cost of living in the village will never increase while they’re living there); and
  • A pathway to aged care if that’s required. 65% of villages have a care facility on the campus.

However, this promise isn’t free. The principal business model is called a “licence to occupy” (LTO) and consists of the payment of a capital sum to move in, the payment of a regular fee (often fixed for life) to cover village day-to-day costs, and when the resident dies or moves to care, the operator refurbishes their unit to bring it back to as-new and a new resident moves in. Once the operator has the incoming resident’s capital payment, the outgoing resident is re-paid their original capital sum less a Deferred Management Fee (DMF) that, amongst other things, is the operator’s return on investment.

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This graphic illustrates the model. The resident’s capital sum is protected in the retirement villages legislation and their right to live in the village protected by contract. The consumer protection balances residents’ rights with operators’ duties and responsibilities. The key detail in this model, which enables the operator to make the promises outlined earlier, is that the resident has no ownership interest in their unit or the village, and is therefore protected from the vicissitudes of property ownership – insurance, taxes, repairs and maintenance, and so forth. For many older people, the release from the responsibilities of owning property is a major reason to move.

It’s worth noting that while 70% of villages fix their weekly fee that covers the overheads and day-to-day operation of the village, the costs the fee covers continue to increase even if the income from the fee doesn’t increase. This means that the operator directly cross-subsidizes the residents’ day-to-day overheads from the deferred management fee and any gains in re-licensing the units. Only a retirement village offers this level of financial security for older people.

Another important reason to move is the release of equity in their family home. Retirement villages charge around 70% of the average freehold selling price in the area where they’re built, which allows a resident to sell their home, move to a village and often have substantial amounts of equity to add to their retirement savings. This can make a substantial improvement in the quality of their retirement and allows them to do things they’ve always wanted to but couldn’t afford.

Where an aged care facility is part of the village, the residents get first call on a bed over someone in the community, should they need one. Over the last 10 years or so the only care facilities built have been part of a retirement village, and often the cost of providing care is cross-subsidised by the revenue (and profit) from the village. This pathway to care is another important consideration for older people, and is a key benefit offered by a village.

With the demographics on our side, the retirement village sector has a lot going for it. However, with the governing Act now 20 years old, there are calls for its review, and some stakeholders maintain there’s an imbalance of power; the operators call the shots and residents have to take it or leave it. 

In fact, the regulations encourage the development of a very flexible business models that allow residents to chose from a variety of options – price, service levels, DMF rates, sharing capital gains, and so forth. 

The government has been reviewing the legislation and recently announced that they would focus on just three issues – the treatment of repairs and maintenance, a review of the complaints and disputes regime, and encouraging operators to refund residents capital sums sooner once they move out. 

Operators are relaxed about these reforms, provided the latter doesn’t result in mandatory buybacks and the financial risks that accompany such a move. However, the proposed changes reflect innovations the RVA has already led so most operators have them well in hand.

Possible learnings for the UK

The Older Peoples’ Housing Taskforce recently released their report into an extensive study of how older people might have more choice about where they live. Recommendation Five notes the need for homes that have good age-appropriate design, are affordable, are close to where the intending resident lives and yet are attractive to housing developers.

The Taskforce’s Recommendation Eight notes the importance of offering a range of different housing types with a clear understanding of fees and costs. Their “4 Key Messages” of “Think Housing, Address Ageing, Promote Well-being and provide Inclusive Communities” are at the heart of the NZ retirement village model.

You can access the Taskforce’s report here

Retirement villages are spread across the entire country – cities to provincial and rural towns. The business model works well anywhere, provided residents have the capital sum (and even that is negotiable). Retirement village operators are also the country’s largest home builders and the Retirement Villages Association estimates that around 5,500 family homes are released annually back into the housing market. Villages are significant contributors to easing the chronic housing shortage.

The financial security villages offer residents means a significant improvement in their well-being, general health, and personal sense of security. However, only villages can offer this because the operators continue to own the land and buildings and are responsible for their maintenance and upkeep. Specialist legislation to protect residents’ and operators’ interests is an effective way to allow villages to be built, but it’s essential that the legislation is sufficiently flexible to allow different business models to evolve as the market matures.

Appendix G in the Housing Taskforce’s report includes an outline of the consumer protections in the NZ retirement village-specific legislation. It’s worth noting that this legislation was passed by the Clark Labour Government in 2003 and has generally stood the test of time well.  

The transition to care is incredibly stressful for both the resident and their family. If care is part of the village package, the stress can be much less and the transition to care is effectively seamless.

Ultimately, villages work because the residents themselves have a vested interest in making them work. Villages that are resident-led (residents manage and run the activities rather than activity co-ordinators employed by the operator) tend to be more successful, popular and encourage new people to move in.

For more detailed information about the NZ Retirement Villages sector, see the RVA’s response to the Retirement Commission’s White Paper for a legislative review.