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Your First Home: building more routes into homeownership

Equity loan schemes seem to have a marmite-like quality: people either love them or hate them. The reaction to the recent announcement of a new scheme in England, Your First Home (YFH), saw both offered. In many respects judgement needs to be delayed until we see the detail in the late October Budget, as much turns on how tightly targeted the scheme is (income caps, price caps etc.) and on the charges that will be borne by households and developers.

The legacy of Help to Buy

The announcement was made shortly after the publication of a very favourable assessment of predecessor Help to Buy schemes (HTB ran from 2013 to 2023 in England) highlighting a net present social value of £25 billion based on the uplift in the value of the equity loans (in 2024/25 prices), an increase in new build of 15% and a boost to home ownership. On the downside, it estimated that there were modest price effects in some areas and that the new build premium was edged up, while around half the users of HTB indicated they could have bought a home without it. Broadly the scheme did meet its objectives of boosting the housing and mortgage markets (including levels of home ownership and developer viability after the Global Financial Crisis) but it seems its efficacy diminished over time, not least as the market recovery continued.

The case for bringing back equity loans

In many respects the battleground here is as much about politics as it is economics. YFH is seen by some as a diversion from the Government’s core aim to rebuild the social housing sector – in my mind a necessary but not sufficient focus of policy. However, it must be borne in mind that in the complex world of government accounting, the spend on this scheme will not count as day to day public expenditure as it is a Financial Transaction. Grant for social housing is capital expenditure, whereas an equity loan creates a financial asset: the Government expects to receive money back. This should largely offset the borrowing needed to finance them under its new debt measure, Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities (PSNFL). While this does not eliminate the financial risks, it means the scheme need not compete directly with social housing investment for the same fiscal resources. In that respect and reflecting the continuing concerns about diminished opportunities for younger households (and the wide political impacts that engenders) opting to return to an equity loan scheme makes a lot of sense.

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Of course past performance is no guide to the future and because the UK has recorded house price inflation increasing in only nominal terms for some years, and is now seeing some real declines, it is possible that YFH borrowers could see both their 2.5% deposit lost and the government not fully recovering its equity loan. Such concerns must play a part in the thinking about how to target the scheme and what real impact it might have on the market. It could be quite limited. We also have to think about how loans are repaid and what impact that has on the capacity to make a next move. Currently unpublished Hamptons data suggests that HTB buyers have had to borrow more compared to other first time buyers moving to a next home – but for some that includes paying down any outstanding equity loan. Over the last five years FTBs on remortagaging and moving have borrowed on average 50-60% more, whilst HTB buyers doing the same borrowed an average of  50-85% more. These figures suggest that some Help to Buy borrowers have been able to remortgage or move while repaying their equity loans.

Making homeownership accessible to more people

While we are currently seeing high numbers of first-time buyers entering the housing market it should be borne in mind that many of them will be supported by the Bank of Mum and Dad. This has clear distributional impacts and if we are to avoid home ownership becoming ever more exclusive then schemes such as YFH are important part of the armoury, helping those with moderate jobs and credit but having limited savings get access to home ownership. And it should not stop there – we need to see further reform to shared ownership to allow it to properly fulfil its potential (and where at last we are seeing solid evidence to make the case from the Leasehold Advisory Service, Shared Ownership Resources and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) and continued reform to mortgage lending rules, where further announcements are expected. Currently, lenders are restricted in the share of mortgages they can offer worth more than 4.5 times the borrower’s annual income. The limit has lagged behind the reality of a housing market where price appreciation has outstripped income growth, and is impacting upon a range of would be purchasers including those with low deposits and the self-employed.

If home ownership is to continue to play a key role in the UK housing system, it is important that effective “ladders” exist between renting and ownership, and this includes access to a suitable stock of housing, access to mortgages and – where necessary – access to help to bridge the gap between aspiration and effective demand.

Your First Home is no panacea, but it could make a valuable contribution.

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The Government is finally asking the right question on housing – so it can’t risk providing the wrong answer again with Help to Buy

The Prime Minister couldn’t have been clearer to the Labour Party conference hall: he intends to end our broken housing system. Just as he said on the steps of Downing Street, he remains committed to ending rough sleeping. But he went further and more personal, sharing the legacy of his parent’s decent home in Keble Drive in Old Roan. How that home ensured his family could fulfil the aspirations that led him to that conference hall.

He outlined more policy on building council homes, helping councils access public land, reforming Right to Buy and restoring the quality of our social housing stock. He indicated going further on the Renters’ Rights Act, with new powers to allow councils to acquire rented homes from slum landlords.

It’s worth noting how his policies are now in complete contrast to the Opposition. Ahead of her own party conference, Kemi Badenoch pledged to end the requirement for developers to contribute to affordable housing when building their penthouses. She also committed to removing rules that made those homes easy to keep warm and cool in. As Burnham is showing how Labour can bring hope back, the Tories are embarking on a relentless raid on aspiration.

That said, there was one potential fly in the ointment of the Prime Minister’s vision for housing. He also announced the new Your First Home scheme, explaining it would “reduce the size of the deposit you need.”

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On the surface, this seems an inherently sensible policy. Too many young families are stuck in the private rented sector – something which should be a choice has become their only option. Each month they pay their rent which, often, then pays off their landlord’s mortgage. Why not help them into ownership?

But is this scheme a new idea, or is it a reheated programme from the George Osborne era? And if so, how can past mistakes be avoided?

Is this Help to Buy 2.0?

In 2013, Help to Buy constituted £3.5bn of the government’s spending on housing, dwarfing all other measures. Most critically, it arguably contributed to the loss of 260,000 social homes over the following decade by diverting away the funds that would have paid for more social homes.

Evaluations from the IFS and Shelter, have shown the failings of the scheme. The money often helped those ‘almost owning’ at the expense of the ‘almost homeless’. If Help to Buy’s 2013 spending commitment had been invested in social housing it could have resulted in around 35,000 new homes for homeless young people. 

Help to Buy may have been a loan rather than a grant, intended to boomerang back to government coffers in the end, but it still took up most of the Cameron-era housing budget. Worse, as the loan was linked to the house prices, many of the supposed beneficiaries had to pay more for their loan as the scheme inflated their home’s worth without benefiting them. Some defaulted and lost their home.

But didn’t Help to Buy work?

A recent Government-led evaluation of Help to Buy, claimed the policy added value. But it is critical to know what question the paper was answering. It was tasked to see if Help to Buy added value in isolation of other policies. Yes, Help to Buy did subsidise some first time buyers. But that doesn’t make it a more efficient use of limited Government funds than other schemes would have been. When I eat a Mars bar, I take calories on board. It doesn’t mean that was the most healthy or efficient choice for my dinner or my budget.

Building our way to affordability?

Help to Buy made more sense if you look at the challenge the Cameron Government set itself. This Government, like many before it, has made a commitment to increase the raw supply of homes in this country over the kind of genuinely affordable homes needed.

The argument for raw supply has come from think tanks and developers, and think tanks funded by developers. It is a simple one – build more homes, and homes will begin costing less. But it doesn’t follow the logic of supply and demand. Last year, according to Savills, over 200,000 new homes were delivered in England. But there are almost 36 million dwellings in England. What happens to the price of goods when the supply of it is increased by 0.5%? Nothing whatsoever.

Homes don’t work like the iPhone. People rushing out to buy a fancy foldable model may well then put their old phone on Backmarket for thrifty folk to snap up at a discount. That’s not what happens when a Saudi investment company unloads its Mayfair property assets. They are traded off to someone else, holding or increasing their value, and over 170,000 children in England remain without a home.

Is the Government repeating past mistakes?

It’s clear the Labour Government is not suggesting a copy and paste of Help to Buy. Critically, they’re not betting the house on it. As Burnham’s speech made clear, Your First Home sits within an array of progressive policies to fix the Private Rented Sector and grow back our quantity of social homes. The offer will also have more sensible caps on who the offer is for based on their income as well as the price of the home it can be used on.

But this does not mean the scheme is without risk and not in need of careful thought. Taking on a mortgage with only a 2.5% deposit is something first time buyers should consider carefully, particularly in a time of global economic uncertainty and the risk of high inflation. In the end, this scheme’s role must be recognised as limited and specific. It’s clear this Government has the right ambition for solving our housing crisis, and because of that, the Your First Home scheme should always be seen as the support, not the headline, act. 

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Social rent council housing should be the Government’s first housing priority

The first tranche of funding for the Government’s Social & Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) has been announced. Of 73,617 “affordable homes” to be built by “Strategic Partners”, funded by the programme, only 3.8% are to be built by councils.

On X, the Labour Party said that “Labour is funding more than 70,000 new homes across England, putting councils at the heart of house building”. Another post said, “This is the biggest council house building revival in decades.” In his first speech in Parliament Andy Burnham referred to “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”. What seems clear to us at the Labour Campaign for Council Housing is that this aspiration on council housing cannot possibly be achieved by the SAHP as currently constituted.

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The stark reality is this:

  • £9.58 billion (outside of London) is being given to 33 “Strategic Partners” for multi-year programmes up to 2039;
  • Just three of them are councils (Cambridge, Eastleigh and Newcastle), with a combined funding of £392.2 million, supporting 2,811 homes;
  • The other 30 “Strategic Partners” are Housing Associations, save for two ‘for profit registered providers’, Sage and Park Properties Housing Association, and the large volume builder Vistry;
  • Sage and Vistry will receive almost as much as the councils combined; £350 million each.

Given that only 2,811 of the 73,617 homes will be built by councils, this cannot possibly represent “putting councils at the heart of house building”. Nor can it be described as “the biggest council house building revival in decades”.

The Government has said that “future stages of the programme will be tilted more towards councils”. Yet there is, currently, no funding ring-fenced for councils. They have to bid in the “Continuous Market Engagement” process, competing for grant with Housing Associations, “for profit registered providers”, developers and builders.

In London the funding is under the control of the Mayor rather than Homes England. Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, announced that “60% of the funding from the first round of the mayor’s new SAHP will go to London boroughs to deliver even more new council homes.” Even so, if 60% was applied nationally, it would still only equate to 10,800 council homes a year. Demolitions and Right to Buy sales will reduce the net number. (Red Brick editor note: The Government is currently progressing reforms to restrict the Right to Buy through the Social Housing Bill ).

SAHP: “a flawed programme”

For us at the Labour Campaign for Council Housing, it was clear when it was first announced that the SAHP was “a flawed programme which would not solve the housing crisis”. The £39 billion pledged over a decade was never going to be sufficient. The 300,000 “affordable homes” it will fund equates to an average of 30,000 a year. Of those, 18,000 will be social rent homes, comprising just 6% of the Government’s annual target for overall housing supply. In no sense can this be described as ‘historic’.

There have only been six years in England when 300,000 or more homes have been built. In those, council housing made up an average of 41%; 135,000 a year.

On the last two occasions when Labour conferences have discussed housing, in 2019 and 2021, overwhelmingly the delegates voted for a Labour government to fund 150,000 social rent homes a year, including 100,000 council homes. Shelter and other organisations have said that as an absolute minimum 90,000 social rent homes a year are necessary. This would require far more funding than £39 billion.

The SAHP average grant is around £130,000 per unit (£39 billion for 300,000 homes). In its recent report for Shelter, Savills estimated an average grant per social rent unit of £177,000. That would add up to £15.9 billion a year; £159 billion for a decade. The Centre for Cities estimated that £16.6 billion a year would be needed to replicate the level of council house building from 1956 to 1979.

Is this unrealistic? No. We should remember that the Attlee Government, despite facing far worse economic circumstances than we do today (the debt to GDP ratio was 250%, compared to under 100% today), funded around 800,000 council homes. It is a question of priorities.

Investment today saves money in the future. Investment in social rent council homes will save money on the housing benefit bill by taking households out of the expensive private rental sector. It will save money for the NHS by taking households out of homes which will ruin their health. It will save councils the exorbitant cost of Temporary Accommodation.

“Affordable housing”

The scale of funding isn’t the only issue, though. The Government has kept the Tory definition of “Affordable Housing”. For instance, “Affordable Rent”, an austerity measure, was introduced by the Coalition Government to facilitate a 60% cut in grant funding. At up to 80% of market rents, it is unaffordable for many. It is £60 a week more than social rent in England, £90 a week in London. As well as impoverishing tenants, it simply drives up the housing benefit bill. Why does the Government propose to continue funding it through SAHP?

If the record numbers of 135,580 households in Temporary Accommodation and 1.3 million households on the social housing waiting lists are to be driven down, the Government needs to make social rent council housing its first priority, on at least the scale that Shelter has called for. If the gulf between the Government’s rhetoric and the actual content of its housing programme is not closed, there will be a political price to be paid.

Andy Burnham, whilst Mayor of Manchester, was right when he said, “The Government should make building hundreds of thousands of council homes its defining purpose. No other policy, achievable within a Parliament, would have greater social and economic benefits.”

That requires significantly more funding and the abandonment of the Tory definition of “Affordable Housing” (see our Letter to Angela Rayner). All the funding should go to social rent homes, the only genuinely affordable tenure for tenants. The Government cannot fend off the threat of a very right wing government, whatever its composition, without beginning to resolve the housing crisis. Council housing remains the key to that.

Martin Wicks

Labour Campaign for Council Housing

Details of membership and affiliation to the campaign can be found here.

Postscript

The 2026 Labour Party Conference voted through a UNITE resolution, as part of a composite motion. The conference voted for:

  • 90,000 social rent homes a year;
  • Ending Right to Buy;
  • Cancelling council housing debt;
  • A publicly funded retrofit programme.
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A message to Andrew Griffith: cut build costs, not social housing

At the Conservative Party Conference yesterday, Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith promised to pare back regulation in a bid to cut the cost of building a new home by £50,000. Pledges include: scrapping changes to improve the energy efficiency of new homes; abolishing Natural England and the Environment Agency; and introducing a new ‘one stop levy’ on developers to replace the much-maligned system for delivering social homes and infrastructure through the planning system.

This blog will focus on the last of these, and why it is a tried and tested dead end for building social homes.

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How do planning obligations work?

Currently, Section 106 (S106) agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) secure a share of social and affordable homes as part of private housing schemes, as well as investment in roads, public transport, schools and doctors’ surgeries. Councils effectively cream off some of the profits from private development to ensure local people see and feel the benefits of new housing.

This system of planning obligations has the significant advantage of delivering social homes and infrastructure alongside private homes, but it also results in lengthy negotiations between councils, landowners and developers about exactly what will be provided, when and where.

These problems are aggravated by site-level viability assessments, which allow planning obligations to be negotiated down if a planned development won’t make enough profit to incentivise landowners to sell and developers to build. Because there is no standardised approach, viability appraisal is often described as a ‘dark art’. In some cases viability appraisals have been submitted showing a site is loss-making to reduce or eliminate social housing before it is sold on for a profit. The mistrust and uncertainty this has created adds time and cost to development.

The Infrastructure Levy: a cautionary tale

There have long been calls from academics, think tanks and others to replace S106 and CIL with a ‘one stop’ cash payment of the kind Griffith has just advocated. In fact, the last Conservative Government had a good go at doing so through its Infrastructure Levy, under which developers would pay a non-negotiable cash tax on the final value of private homes. But they ultimately ditched the deeply unpopular plans, widely seen as unworkable and likely to deliver worse outcomes than S106. 30 organisations – including private developers, councils, Housing Associations, planners and construction industry leaders – wrote to the then Secretary of State Michael Gove in favour or ‘retaining and continuing to improve’ the existing system of planning obligations. The current Shadow Cabinet should take note.

Below are four of the major drawbacks of switching from in-kind delivery to cash payments for the supply of social homes through the planning system.

1.    Fewer social homes in the places where they are needed most

If developers pay a financial levy instead of delivering social homes as part of private schemes, there is no guarantee that replacement homes will ultimately be delivered in the same area. Councils or Housing Associations would have to compete in the open land market for sites. In some places, suitable sites will not be available. Social landlords often struggle to compete with private developers’ land teams, which have greater resources, skills and experience.

S106 secures social homes in precisely the places grant has struggled to reach – places where higher demand for market homes pushes up land prices. Replacing it with cash risks fewer social homes in the least affordable places; more people in housing need moving away from communities, jobs, schools and care networks; more economically and socially segregated communities; and fewer direct benefits from new development for local people.

2.    Lower, slower social housing supply

An S106 home is a completed home ready for someone to move into. Before money raised from a ‘one stop levy’ can become a social home, the council or HA must assemble all the other ingredients needed to turn cash into homes: land with planning permission, a viable package of funding and finance, labour and materials. This is likely to take at least two years from start to finish. The result is fewer homes delivered later.

3.    Inflation and market changes erode the value of cash

Unlike a completed social home, the value of a levy transferred to a council is exposed to changing market conditions. By the time a council has assembled the other ingredients needed to turn cash into homes, construction costs will have increased, land values may have risen, borrowing costs may be higher, grant and other funding may have changed. Tax that would have funded a given number of homes when received will fund fewer homes several years later – a point backed up by research from University College London.

4.    Missed opportunities to rehouse those in need

Most importantly, every year of lost social housing supply is another year in which households remain in Temporary Accommodation, unsafe homes or on the streets. Councils would continue paying high costs for TA or other temporary solutions, and the taxpayer would continue paying high levels of housing benefit into private TA or to private landlords, rather than using the money for permanently affordable homes.

Taking on high build costs

The problem of rising build costs is real and pressing. The Home Builders’ Federation estimates they have risen by £76,000 per home since 2020. Surveys of social landlords likewise flag rising build costs as a key barrier to increasing supply.

Much of this reflects rising material and labour costs as geopolitical shocks have collided with a construction sector held back by stagnant productivity. But it is also true that builders of all types of homes are facing a sharp increase in the costs of policy compliance as many new requirements come into effect over a relatively short period of time: the Future Homes Standard, the Building Safety Levy and Biodiversity Net Gain, to name a few. These policies are needed to clear up the Conservatives’ mess on building safety while improving England’s resilience to the climate emergency. Nonetheless, they contribute to a genuine challenge.

The question is, would binning the Section 106 system help or hinder housebuilding? The recent experience of the Infrastructure Levy suggests the Conservatives’ proposal for a ‘one step levy’ would be wasteful distraction from the real work needed to drive down build costs, absorbing time and resources from industry and all levels of government – and it would, of course, produce fewer social and affordable homes, reducing overall housing supply and curtailing opportunities for innovation in the construction sector.

The Government has undertaken sweeping planning reforms to start controlling costs, with more planned – but planning reforms from central government are unlikely to be enough. Fortunately, there are many other opportunities to bring down build costs, such as smarter procurement, finally catching up with the rest of the developed world in the use of Modern Methods of Construction, and addressing the unusually low productivity of our construction sector.

While there is a role for central government, mayors will be best placed to seize many of these opportunities. As devolution progresses, I’d like to see mayors take on the build costs challenge. Could better organisation of funding and powers across housing, transport, planning and skills at the regional level strip out cost more effectively than any central government initiative? And could mayors do so by working with social housing, rather than against it?

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Economic evictions – turning a blind eye?

St James Tenants Association - Instagram: @stjamestenants

With the abolition of Section 21 “no-fault” eviction notices on 1 May 2026, tenants gained protection from one form of arbitrary eviction: landlords can no longer issue a notice to quit without specific grounds. But economic eviction persists – that is, the ability of landlords to push tenants out with a hefty rent hike.

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Housing campaigners warn that this will be the new Section 21: rent hikes issued in revenge for tenant complaints, to increase their income whether the tenant decides to stay or not, or to clear the property to convert into something more lucrative. In fact, rent hikes can achieve tenant clearance with less effort than the modified Ground 6 possession claim needed for redevelopment, which has a high evidence burden (requiring things like architects’ plans, schedule of works, quotations). A rent hike, even when challenged under the measures in the Renters’ Rights Act, can be justified with little more than a screenshot of Rightmove.

Economic eviction after Section 21

Economic eviction is already a visible threat on the 182-household St James estate in Bermondsey. Their corporate landlord, BMR, took over the previously below-market-rent estate in November 2025. Less than six months later – in a pre-Renters Rights Act (RRA) rush – fifty households were issued with Section 21s, thirty of which are working their way through backlogged courts.

Separate but concurrently, many households from the rest of the estate were issued Section 13 rent hikes – again, pre-RRA but with market comparison principles that have survived reform. St James tenants now face rises of several hundreds of pounds per month – costs they can’t afford. Local councillor Andy Bates says the landlord is converting many of the newly vacant houses into lucrative Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), some of which appear to be let as temporary accommodation.

For the Government’s part, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has said that rent controls are not forthcoming as RRA changes are ‘already having a significant impact on the market’. Similarly, while a Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee report in July recognised that ‘retaliatory rent increases could act as a form of economic eviction’, the authors were also ‘not currently convinced’ that rent stabilisation is justified. The question is: how is the Government going to collect the relevant evidence? The system is not built to track economic evictions.

The limits of rent tribunal data

Previously, under the Assured Shorthold Tenancy regime, arbitrary evictions – for revenge, raising rent, clearing tenants or property conversion – were typically done through Section 21s. There was no Section 21 registration, but trends could be partially tracked by proxy. Ministry of Justice landlord possessions data would reveal “accelerated” Section 21 possession claims (for tenants who overstayed their notice) giving a concrete number to track every quarter. Even these imperfect figures had the power to generate headlines and shape discussion.

Section 21s also appeared in statutory homelessness statistics with their own column: “Threatened with homelessness due to service of valid section 21 notice”. Again, it didn’t capture all tenants forced out by Section 21s, but it offered another spotlight on landlord eviction practices and their homelessness-producing consequences. The changes introduced by the RRA have compromised this evidence without offering an alternative; economic eviction will not have that same quarterly focus. Weak though the previous tracking system was, the data terrain now seems even sparser. 

First-tier Tribunal rulings will go some way to showing the extent and scale of rent hikes. Tribunals allow tenants to challenge rent increases (now for a £47 fee). Rulings are published online and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has stated its intention to use them to monitor whether RRA reforms are contributing to ‘fairer outcomes for renters’. Yet this evidence base presents serious limitations for economic evictions.

First, tribunal outcomes only capture cases submitted and judged. Plenty of rent hikes will just force a tenant out quietly without challenge. Rulings also don’t track any subsequent tenant displacement due to unaffordability. In the St James estate, five rulings have so far been published; two were agreed at the maximum rent requested by the landlord and the five households have seen monthly rent rises of between 9% and 43%. Will these tenants be de facto evicted through unaffordability? How will the Government ever know?

Second, tribunals require tenant initiation, but a lack of confidence in the system will prevent many from bothering. The latest English Housing Survey found that 94% of private renters who made a complaint to their landlord or letting agent and found the response unsatisfactory did not then escalate it to an external arbiter. While this data is not about rent tribunal engagement – referring to things like Environmental Health – the reasons are relevant: 35% of renters said they didn’t think anything would be done and 31% said it was too much hassle or too time-consuming. The 22-page First-Tier Tribunal form (the MR1) prompts for detailed text and photographic evidence related to property dimensions, amenities, conditions and market comparisons. Many renters will find it more than just a hassle: St James resident and campaigner Sophie said in a recent podcast we did together that ‘it [the form] literally has tripped up some of our non-fluent English-speaking neighbours’.

Third, tribunal processes pose exposure risks. If tenants wish to make an undue hardship claim in relation to their rent dispute, they must provide evidence. Such information – like benefits status, savings, age, a physical disability or mental health issue – can be publicly commented on in the ruling. Each highly personal detail is associated with the tenant’s name and address. Another disincentive to apply. Another cohort of squeezed tenants not visible in government trackers.

Separately, the annual English Housing Survey asks respondents their reason for leaving a previous tenancy: in 2024-5, a landlord-imposed rent increase was given as the reason for leaving in just 3% of cases. But the EHS is less frequent than quarterly statutory reporting, relies on small sampling, and comes with many of the participation barriers outlined above.

If we don’t track economic eviction, we won’t see it

So, under the new RRA there’s no adequate proxy to track rent stress and economic eviction. The latitude this information gap gifts to landlords will likely hit long-established tenant communities the hardest – communities like St James, where tenants have lived for decades, renting on lower-than-market rent rates.

Statutory data collection around economic evictions won’t help St James residents today – they need funds to fight their evictions through the legal system. But, in the absence of rent controls, tracking economic eviction impacts is desperately needed. The St James experience is only visible through a hard-fought grassroots campaign – a government that chooses to look away will not see the next one.

Jessica Field is a housing writer and author of Eviction: A Social History of Rent (Verso, 2025) – out now in paperback. St James tenants are fighting displacement and calling on their previous landlord, Notting Hill Genesis, to rehouse evicted tenants. You can donate to their fight here.

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Housing-led regeneration is the key to unlock hope in left behind communities

“My belief is that your postal code does not determine your worth, value, or capabilities. However, when it feels as though where you call home isn’t worth investing in, people can lose their feeling of connection and their sense of value in ‘place’, subsequently disengaging completely. Through meaningful regeneration, residents in areas in the Gleadless Valley can look across the city and see a real, achievable future before them. A future that, by investing in their roots, can give them hope to grow.”

These are the words of Lara Joyce, Secretary of the Gleadless Valley Resident and Tenants’ Association, taken from the perspectives article she wrote for the Northern Housing Consortium’ s (NHC) Renew inquiry into housing-led regeneration.  

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A few weeks ago, Lara showed myself and members of the South Yorkshire Housing Partnership around her local area as part of one of our Renew site visits. Lara shared how the Gleadless Valley was held up as an architectural triumph when it was first built. More recently, however, it has become one of the UK’s 10% most deprived areas. Change has been promised since 2017 but never materialised, leaving residents frustrated and disillusioned. Now, through the efforts of involved residents like Lara working alongside dedicated council officers, trust is slowly being rebuilt, and at last there is hope. At the end of 2025, the ‘Vision for the Valley’ (developed with residents like Lara) was approved by Sheffield City Council. A community-led approach to reporting and managing fly tipping, anti-social behaviour and street maintenance is being rolled out, alongside a new park, signalling change is finally coming. Longer-term plans include over 1,000 new homes, refurbishment of existing properties, and improvements to community amenities and transport, although funding is not yet confirmed for all elements.

On the site visit, Lara told us:

“I want kids from this estate to look across the city and see a real, achievable future before them, a future that, with investment in their roots, can give them hope to grow.”

The wheels are certainly in motion for Lara’s vision to become a reality. However, Lara and the Gleadless Valley residents are not alone. There are lots of other communities in similar situations across the North, and we must make sure no one and nowhere is left behind. 

Why regeneration needs government support

Hearing Prime Minister Andy Burnham talk about regeneration as one of his top priorities offers hope. We have also seen action: additional flexibility in the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) to support regeneration, the National Housing Delivery Fund, the Pride in Place initiative, and the Northern Growth Strategy all promise investment in the North’s cities. Deepening devolution through Rewiring of the State should give local leaders more flexibility to address local priorities, and is something the NHC has advocated for consistently for years. 

However, whilst housing-led regeneration undoubtedly brings substantial benefits to local communities and economies, it is extremely challenging to deliver in the North. With lower land values and high remediation costs, many schemes are simply not viable without Government support. Many successful schemes I’ve seen have only gone ahead because social housing providers have pooled multiple funding streams and invested their own funds at levels that just wouldn’t be sustainable on a larger scale.

Our Renew report, Unlocking 500,000 homes in the North, was based on evidence from providers who own or manage 70% of the North’s social housing. We found that in many areas of the North, housing-led regeneration is an essential part of delivering new homes and making sure no one and nowhere is left behind. 

Making existing funding work harder

There are some simple measures the Government can take now to make housing-led regeneration on estates, in town centres and on brownfield land more achievable. The Government has already pledged to give Mayors more control over SAHP funding. Giving Mayors greater flexibility to fund council and social rent homes, through Continuous Market Engagement, without a cap on regeneration activity, will help them address the housing needs in their local area. Specific KPIs for Homes England around regeneration would also help. At the moment, all Homes England’s KPIs are still around new supply, despite it being the Government’s housing and regeneration agency.

An allocation of National Housing Bank funds for housing-led regeneration would help schemes progress. Extending the National Housing Delivery Fund to ten years would also have a significant impact. We estimate this would allow all of the North’s brownfield land to be remediated, unlocking 320,000 new homes.

Whilst these changes would be welcome, ultimately the substantial gap in support for regeneration can only be filled by a dedicated place-based fund. Our Renew inquiry recommends providing northern Mayors and combined authorities with £500m per year for 10 years in devolved, flexible funding as part of integrated settlements where they exist. This would empower Mayors to bridge viability gaps for strategically important schemes, and would significantly increase the capacity of social housing providers to replace or refurbish homes that have reached the end of their lives. Our research suggests this place-based fund would tackle the vast majority of the 100,000 end of life social homes in the North over the next decade. As well as ensuring thousands of people could live in better quality, healthier homes, this would also reduce repair costs and free up capacity to build more new homes.

Our Renew visits over the summer, have highlighted a piecemeal approach to regeneration, where social housing has been transformed but privately owned properties have been left untouched. Even in areas with high concentrations of social housing, privately owned and rented homes are pepper-potted around estates due to Right to Buy. Dedicated flexible funding would make it possible to buy poor quality private homes, including empty homes, and refurbish them into social housing, making a real difference to whole neighbourhoods.

A new National Centre for Regeneration in the North could spearhead investment in capacity, working closely with Mayors and combined authorities to drive forward regeneration and develop a workforce that’s ready to deliver.

Putting communities at the heart of regeneration

In the words of Lara Joyce, if we want regeneration to give people “hope to grow”, getting community engagement right is a must. The Renew site visits have shown the importance of housing providers and other partners working closely with communities, keeping them up to date and listening to and acting on their feedback. In the coming weeks, we have further work planned around community engagement to feed into policy development.

To unlock growth in every postcode and make sure no one and nowhere is left behind, we must act now on housing-led regeneration. It is the only way to make sure everyone has access to a safe, warm, home in a place they’re proud of.

The NHC is leading the Renew inquiry into housing-led regeneration for northern growth, supported by Homes for North and Muse. The inquiry is chaired by Lord Richard Best OBE DL and the Renew Westminster Group Chair is Andrew Cooper MP.

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More council homes, lower bills, stronger communities: Cambridge’s approach to building better

When people talk about sustainable housing, they generally focus on the physical structures. During my career as an architect, and now as part of Cambridge City Council’s Labour administration following the May 2026 elections, I have developed a broader vision of what counts as sustainable, looking beyond the building itself to ask how it works within the wider social setting, as a home and not just a house, and as part of a neighbourhood that meets people’s wider needs.

This means taking account of both the built and social environment, providing more than just basic housing, and understanding how a house contributes to the surrounding streetscape. When we build, we are not just assembling structures but weaving new threads into the existing community, and we need to make sure that everyone has the facilities and spaces they need to live sustainable, good lives.

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So while my focus in Cambridge is on the quality of our council housing, our planning always takes account of that wider perspective, so that we build homes people want to live in, in attractive neighbourhoods with the amenities they need and good transport links.

We have built many council homes in Cambridge in the last eight years. Initially we had support from a £70 million funding package from our devolution deal with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, through which we committed to building 500 new council homes. In those early days, the Council’s focus was almost exclusively on quantity as we worked to hit our target. While we built to standards that were slightly better than national building regulations, the volume of delivery was our primary driver. We completed our 500th council home a year ahead of schedule, and have now built more than 850 new council homes.

We have evolved our approach in recent years. We still want to build at pace, but we also want to build to the highest possible quality. Investing in the fabric of the building was a strategic choice. Although it can increase upfront costs, it directly helps our tenants by bringing down utility bills and improving the comfort of their homes. This is only growing in importance as we experience the consequences of the climate emergency.

As the executive councillor for planning, I was proud to help bring forward our sustainable construction Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). Alongside this, we introduced a sustainable housing guide for our council house programme that aimed for certified Passivhaus standards. This was a highly significant moment, making it clear that we were aiming to build the most energy-efficient homes possible in Cambridge.

Yet, as any local authority knows, we have to constantly balance environmental ambitions with financial reality. We discovered that strict Passivhaus certification was incredibly expensive and financially demanding. Furthermore, Passivhaus design is heavily reliant on orienting and positioning buildings in particular ways. That’s not always possible when you are working with complex, irregular, or difficult urban “infill” sites – the sort we rely on to deliver the density of homes our city  desperately needs.  Recent schemes including Arbury Road and Kings Hedges in North Cambridge relied on the Cam Standard to make them viable.

We have not let this curtail our ambitions. In 2024 we created the “Cam Standard.” This bespoke standard acts as a robust baseline that maintains our commitment to energy efficiency and climate-change resilience, while offering the practical flexibility required for complex urban sites. It is a realistic, scalable stepping stone that ensures all our developments prioritise lowering energy use, with the explicit goal that all proposed council homes will target Net Zero Carbon by 2030.

And now we have the next stage to look forward to. as Cambridge is one of three councils to have secured long-term funding as a strategic partner under the government’s Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP). This funding gives us the certainty we need to plan over a longer horizon and develop the pipeline for building another 1,400 high-quality council homes across our city, with the aim of ensuring 60% of those are available at social rent.

This funding is especially vital given the massive development pressures facing Cambridge. The government is planning major expansions, with a Development Corporation set to oversee significant growth. Our position as a Labour council is clear: we must protect the integrity of council house building and ensure there are genuinely affordable homes for our residents. Through our joint venture with The Hill Group, the Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP), we aim for 50% of the homes built on our schemes across the city to be council homes. We will be engaging robustly with the incoming Development Corporation to ensure they recognise how vital this 50% target is in a city with such highly priced market homes.

Looking forward, all our new-build sites are fully electric and gas-free, and we want to provide on-site energy generation through PV. At the same time we’re looking at energy storage systems. While current lithium batteries raise environmental and safety concerns, the emergence of sodium batteries offers an exciting, sustainable alternative. Our ultimate goal is to provide “zero-utility-bill” council housing.

They are also designed as “Lifetime Homes” where a young couple can move in and expect to remain for their entire lives. All homes have private outside spaces and are wheelchair accessible, featuring wider doorways and, downstairs toilets. 5% of homes are also built with further adaptations for wheelchair users in mind.

Through our house building programme we have also built five new community centres, seven new parks and play areas, two pre-schools, one library and new shops. We have provided a further £12.2 million of funding to support local schools, parks, sports centres and the NHS.

By building high-quality, adaptable, and community-focused homes, I like to think that we also show private developers what is truly possible. In doing so, we are honouring the deep legacy of our movement. As the great Aneurin Bevan famously observed of post-war housing needs: “While we shall be judged for a year or two by the numbers of houses we built, we shall be judged in ten years by the type of houses we build.”

In Cambridge, as a regular top 10 council house builder, we have delivered on the numbers. Now, through the Cam Standard and our strategic partnership, we are ensuring that the houses we leave behind will stand as a proud legacy of sustainable, inclusive, and fair municipal design for generations to come.

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Building the homes Brent needs: In conversation with Cllr Matt Kelcher

Red Brick: First, what does the housing crisis look like for people in Brent?

Matt Kelcher: We have many of the same challenges as other parts of London and the country: fundamentally, we need more housing of all different kinds.

We have more than 30,000 households on the housing waiting list, but it’s important to understand what that means. Only a proportion of those households are in priority need. People further down the list are extremely unlikely ever to receive a council home, however long they wait.

I think councils have to be honest about that. Being on a waiting list can give people the impression that if they sit tight for long enough, eventually they’ll get a home. The reality is that’s just not the way it works with the levels of social housing we have available today. The wait can be decades, and that uncertainty can affect decisions about new jobs, where children go to school and how people plan for the future. At Brent, we’ve set up our Find a place you can afford programme to give local people help now to find a private tenancy, rather than leaving them on a waiting list.

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The housing crisis in Brent also goes well beyond the waiting list. We’re a young, incredibly diverse borough with strong family and community ties. A lot of people want to live in the borough where they grew up. They don’t want to move miles and miles away from their parents. But often there just aren’t the homes available for them here – whether that’s social housing, private rented housing, shared ownership or housing to buy.

You see young people with decent jobs who can’t move out of their childhood bedroom, young people who want to get on the housing ladder but can’t, and couples living in a one-bedroom flat who want to have children but can’t find somewhere bigger. If you don’t have somewhere secure that you can call your own, it has huge consequences for the way you live the rest of your life. It puts your life on hold. We want to free people from that by delivering secure homes of all types for everyone.

RB: Tell us about your approach to development. What can a Labour-run council actually do to shape development in a borough where much of the building is done by other organisations?

Brent has had a really good reputation for a long time of being somewhere that proactively welcomes development and the regeneration it brings. We are a rare example of a place in London that is managing to exceed our housing and planning targets.

I think being open and positive about development actually allows you to get more out of developers, not less. Development involves risk. If you’re going to spend months or years developing a scheme, but think there’s a significant chance the council will reject it at the end of the process, you either price that risk into the scheme or decide to invest somewhere else.

Brent has built a reputation as somewhere developers can have a constructive conversation with the council and get a fair hearing. That doesn’t mean saying “yes” to everything. It means being clear about what we want and working with developers to see whether they can deliver it.

That certainty makes Brent a more attractive place to invest. And if more developers want to work here, that creates competition for opportunities. If several major developers want to work with us on a regeneration scheme, they have to compete over what they can offer Brent – social housing, shared ownership, social value and other benefits for the community.

So, I push back against the idea we sometimes hear that being pro-development means being soft on developers. If you’re clear about your priorities, create competition and give people confidence that good schemes can actually get built, you can strengthen the council’s hand.

Shillibeer House on the old bus garage in Alperton is a good example. We worked with the private sector on a development of around 450 homes. Three blocks are private, and the fourth has given us 155 council homes. They look exactly the same as the private homes. People who had spent years in temporary accommodation now have a permanent council home. Some of the people who’ve moved in have made videos sharing their stories and the difference a council home has made to them. We couldn’t have delivered that outcome without being prepared to work in partnership with the private sector.

RB: Labour is now running Brent as a minority administration. How do you maintain that confidence when the council’s political position has changed?

There was inevitably some uncertainty among developers after the election. They wanted to know whether Brent’s political direction had changed. My message to them is very simple: it hasn’t.

We’re still the administration and there’s an enormous amount we continue to do. The Leader, the Cabinet and I are completely aligned about the importance of housing and regeneration, and that gives a clear direction to our officers in the planning department. People often want to come and work here , cut their teeth in the sector in Brent and a lot of them stay a long time, because they have the space to see projects through and make a difference.

But we do need to keep providing that certainty externally – maintaining relationships with developers and Housing Associations, being clear that we want growth and demonstrating that Brent remains somewhere where good development can happen.

Housing has also become more politically contested locally. Opposition parties have campaigned against development of all kinds including social housing, so those of us who believe we need more homes have to be willing to make the argument for them.

I do think attitudes are changing, too. On the planning committee we have had young people come along to speak in favour of housing applications because they wanted the opportunity to find a home in the borough where they were born and raised. The housing crisis is increasingly something people can see in their own families and communities.

RB: How do you make sure Brent is building the right homes to meet all those different kinds of housing need?

You have to manage housing delivery as a portfolio across the borough, rather than judge success by one tenure or the affordable housing percentage on one individual development. Our policy aims for 50% affordable housing across development, with 70% of that total to weighted towards social rent and London Affordable Rent products, as that is our area of greatest need. But that doesn’t mean every individual scheme will deliver exactly 50%. Some will provide less and others can provide 100%. What matters is what we’re securing across the programme as a whole.

So there may be circumstances where a development doesn’t achieve the headline percentage, but what it does provide is more three-bedroom family homes. We have to think about the actual benefit to Brent residents, rather than treating every site as interchangeable.

Sometimes the housing debate gets divided into two camps. There are people who focus on liberalising planning and getting the private sector building more, and others who put the emphasis on delivering more social housing.

I don’t think those ambitions are contradictory. We should make it easier to build more homes, because the fundamental problem is that we have far too few of them. And at the same time, we should be ambitious about delivering social housing and ensuring it remains a permanent and important part of mixed communities. For me, being an activist council means using all the tools and partners available to get the combination of homes our residents actually need.

RB: What could national or London government do to help Brent go further?

If I could make one change to support our social housing ambitions, I would end the Right to Buy in London.

RB editor’s note: The Government took early action to reduce Right to Buy discounts in November 2024. The Social Housing Bill currently going through Parliament would further restrict the Right to Buy, though the Bill stops short of ending the programme in England.

We’re building council housing ourselves. At Church End, for example, we’re delivering 99 new social homes. But when we plan new council housing, we’ve had to make assumptions about how many of those homes could subsequently be lost through Right to Buy.

That matters before a single home has been sold. Council housing requires long-term borrowing and investment. If you know that some of the assets you’re building could subsequently be sold at a discount, that affects the risk, the finances and ultimately how much more housing you can build.

And I don’t think Right to Buy has achieved what it was supposed to achieve in London. It was intended to expand home ownership, but many former council homes have ended up being rented out privately at higher rents or lost to the short lets sector. That means people in Brent have to pay those higher rents, which means they can’t save for a deposit, which means they can’t buy their own homes. Therefore, I believe that in London at least, Right to Buy has completely failed on its own terms. That’s why I’d like to see a London-specific policy, in the same way as Wales has ended it.

There is a more fundamental point too. My grandad lived in the same council flat in Sheffield for his whole life. He had no intention of buying it. Why would he? It was his home for as long as he needed it.

Social housing shouldn’t simply be a residual tenure for somebody who happens to be poor at a particular moment in their life. If somebody moves into a council home when they’re young and struggling, then gets a good job, we shouldn’t suddenly think they earn too much to deserve to live in their home or their community.

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How to increase investment in council housing and capitalise on the economic benefits

The Prime Minister has made clear his ambition: to “oversee the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”. This is a hugely positive step forward for the Government’s housing policy; it marks a generational break with 45 years of housing policy that failed to articulate a clear aim beyond merely maximising overall output – with little regard to affordability for people on low incomes or at risk of homelessness. And, crucially, it will help to capitalise on councils’ knowledge of local housing need, significant land value capture powers, and masterplanning capabilities.  

Yet the decline of council housing was driven not only by housing policy, but by the rise of restrictive fiscal policy that actively constrains government investment in social homes and has pushed Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) into existential financial jeopardy. Despite being justified under the guise of ‘fiscal responsibility’, debt-to-GDP spiked sharply during austerity while investment in public assets like social housing collapsed and vital services were cut – demonstrably impoverishing both people and the state.

At the Autumn Budget, to realise its ambitions on council housebuilding, the Government must reconnect political ends with economic means and drive a change in economic consensus that places social housing investment at the centre of national renewal. In an upcoming report on council house building, we argue the Budget marks a clear opportunity for the Government to cancel £31.8bn in HRA debt to unlock councils’ capacity to build, covered in detail here, and do more to bring forward and increase funding – ensuring its fiscal framework supports rather than hinders greater investment in council and social homes.

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The financial and economic case for cancelling HRA debt and increasing investment

Modelling commissioned by Shelter and undertaken by Pragmatix sets out an ambitious scenario for the Government to cancel HRA debt and provide the necessary investment to deliver 284,000 social rent homes within a 10-year trajectory – in addition to those already expected to be delivered through the Social and Affordable Homes Programme. Pragmatix estimates that the economic benefits of the policy would outweigh its costs within twenty years, around a decade after the final homes are built. Over the report’s 60-year appraisal period, the modelling estimates a net economic benefit of £141.5 billion, including substantial savings to the public sector from reducing reliance on more expensive forms of housing. Government departments are estimated to save £64.7 billion over the period, including £26.3 billion for the Department for Work and Pensions, while savings to councils from reducing the number of households in temporary accommodation eventually reach £672 million a year.

Cancelling HRA debt is broadly fiscally neutral; the majority of debt is owed to Treasury, meaning it is largely a series of inter-government transfers, involving cancelling debt that the public sector owes to itself.

The fiscal framework should support rather than hinder investment

Within this Parliament, debt cancellation and delivery, as outlined above, is also compliant with the Government’s ‘investment rule’, using around 56% of the current ‘headroom’ as of the OBR’s 2026 spring forecast. While council and social housing is a more-than-worthy use of investment ‘headroom’, this self-imposed restraint on public investment creates artificial trade-offs with other policy areas and reduces the Government’s appetite to increase funding. More flexibility is therefore needed within the fiscal framework to ensure that the long-term economic net benefit of investing in social housing is recognised.

The Government’s fiscal framework disincentivises social housing investment

The narrow and short-term focus of the current fiscal framework discourages social housing investment and hinders the Government’s aim of delivering a council housing revolution. Firstly, the Government’s rolling target (the ‘investment rule’) requires its chosen debt measure to be falling as a share of GDP in the third year of the OBR’s forecast period – but this disregards the longer-term savings and additional revenue social housing generates.

Secondly, the Government’s chosen debt measure – Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities (PSNFL) – fails to value the physical asset created on the Government’s balance sheet when it funds a new social home.

Thirdly, PSNFL creates a two-tier fiscal system that favours social housing delivery through housing associations and for-profit registered providers over public-led social housebuilding from councils and development corporations. Unlike most EU countries that use a general government debt measure, PSNFL includes the entire public sector. It means that our fiscal rules include the debt of our public social housing providers, even though their debts are paid for by rents and other independent income as opposed to taxation or wider government expenditure – i.e. they are classed by the ONS as ‘market producing’.

Finally, because of this public-sector focus in the debt measure, the central government financial asset recorded under PSNFL when investing in council housing (created by loaning money to HRAs via the Public Works Loan Board) is actually netted off by the liability held by the loan recipient (the council or development corporation) in the national accounts. This leaves only the liability on the Government’s balance sheet created from the borrowing it undertook to ‘fund’ the loan. In contrast, liabilities held by private registered providers to pay back loans to central government are excluded from PSNFL, making these loans more fiscally attractive for central government: the asset (the loan) and liability (borrowing to ‘fund’ the loan) held by central government cancel each other out.

The consequences for social and council housebuilding are stark

Rather than seeing good growth and healthy public finances as the outcome of social housing investment, the current framework forces housing policy towards day-to-day spending on housing benefit and expensive temporary accommodation – which flows outwards from the public sector to private landlords. Investment remains far below what is needed:

  • Social and Affordable Homes Programme grant, while welcome, only enables the delivery of 18,000 social rent homes a year on average – we need to deliver 90,000 a year for 10 years to end the housing emergency.
  • Interest rates from the Public Works Loan Board available to HRAs remain far too high with 50-year maturity lending at around 6%.
  • HRAs and public development corporations are excluded from £2.5 billion in 0.1% interest loans recently provided to housing associations and for-profit providers, a distinction that reflects their different treatment within the fiscal framework.

Fiscal reform is needed to support the scaling up of council housing delivery

To deliver its promise of a council housing revolution, the Government must scale up current grant funding and available low-cost finance to much higher levels. In doing so, it must ensure that councils and development corporations, who were the key players of the post-war social housing boom, are empowered to support the Government’s social housing ambition. In an upcoming report later this month, we argue that, if the Government remains committed to not change the current fiscal rules, it should instead exclude HRAs and development corporations from PSNFL. This would finally end central government incentives to limit their borrowing, devolving power to HRAs and development corporations, and support the Government to provide them with the low-cost loans needed to deliver social housing at scale.

Email your councillor today and ask them to add their name to a letter to the chancellor, urging him to knock down the barriers to getting councils social homes again.  https://campaigns.shelter.org.uk/tell-your-cllr-fight-for-social-homes

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How can people who need air conditioning the most afford to run it during heatwaves?

As climate change drives hotter summers, cooling is becoming a public health necessity, not a luxury.

For anyone looking for an answer to this question, the recent Climate Change Committee (CCC) report, titled A Well-Adapted UK and backed up by no less than 1,841 references, is essential reading. Among many other necessary recommendations, it highlights the importance of adapting existing homes to keep them cool in hot weather.

Air conditioning and the cooling hierarchy

How do we do this? Experts at Shade the UK are correct that we need to use a combination of ‘nature-based’, ‘passive design’, and ‘active ventilation and cooling’ measures in the right order. In this cooling hierarchy, a significant and often sufficient amount of cooling can be achieved by simple external shade and good insulation. However, passive measures will not always be sufficient. In some homes, active cooling such as air conditioning (AC) will be needed.

Until recently, we haven’t had a good idea of how much active cooling we might actually need, or how many people currently have AC.

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Now, we have a much better indication. According to a recent academic study, published in June of this year, estimates of present-day AC use across the UK vary widely, with figures ranging from 3 per cent to 19 per cent of homes.

Although future trends are uncertain, one conclusion this study comes to is that previous official assumptions about AC uptake “are too narrow, and present ownership is potentially an order of magnitude higher.”

Cooling is also becoming an issue of inequality. As with all energy services, AC ownership and use is fundamentally unequal. Recent evidence shows that some people who are at the most risk from heat in the UK, including older adults, low-income households and many social housing tenants, are less likely to have and use AC. As a result, the side of energy poverty long experienced elsewhere in Europe – summer cooling – has landed in the UK.

Leaving aside the upfront purchase cost, in what follows we want to focus more on the running cost issue. A small AC unit using roughly 1kW for seven hours per day over 30 days would cost around £54.83 in electricity. That might not seem like much, but for those on the lowest incomes, it absolutely is.

A Hot Weather Payment?

In what you might call classical UK fuel poverty policy, energy affordability is driven by three factors: energy prices, the energy efficiency of the home, and low household incomes. The same factors will shape the affordability of running AC and other active cooling measures.

It follows that policy interventions might be required to support lower-income and heat-vulnerable households with the costs of running AC in summer, and especially during heatwaves, when they will be needed most.

One option is for the Government to start thinking about a Hot Weather Payment. This could mirror the current design of the Cold Weather Payment, with some improvements based on previous learnings. The objective would ultimately be to reduce heat-related mortality and morbidity during hot weather.

For example, eligible households could receive a payment for each period of hot weather between 1 May and 31 October. The trigger for this payment could be based on temperature, like the Cold Weather Payment. Another possibility would be to link payments directly to Heat-Health Alerts, ensuring that financial support is automatically triggered when dangerous temperatures are forecast.

Any Hot Weather Payment system would need to make payments in advance of a heatwave, and would also need an eligibility criterion that effectively targets those on low-incomes and most vulnerable to heat-related mortality and morbidity.

To be balanced, there might be alternative ways of achieving the same outcome as a Hot Weather Payment. The CCC is right, but perhaps a little optimistic, to suggest that our future energy system could have enough clean, cheap electricity to make this problem go away without direct financial support. Homes with solar PV could also feasibly generate enough electricity to power an AC unit.

However, we would be wise not to rely on renewable electricity generation and wider energy system reform to meet the potential costs of keeping cool in the more regular 40°C summers of the future.

22 per cent of homes will need AC

Astute readers might have realised that earlier we wrote that until recently we haven’t had a good idea of how much active cooling we might actually need. But now we have estimates of this too.

The recent CCC report states that in future climate conditions of 2°C global warming – which is around what we are heading for – approximately 22 per cent of UK homes will require active cooling, like AC, to cope with overheating. Under more drastic warming scenarios, which are still not impossible, active cooling is required for almost every single home in England.

The exact level of warming we hit is still subject to choices made by us all. But if we assume a minimum of 22 per cent of UK homes will need AC, and that many of these will be lower-income households and/or particularly vulnerable to heat-related harm, the question of how these households will afford to run their AC units when they need to becomes inescapable.

A Hot Weather Payment might not be the best solution. Wider electrification, solar PV, battery storage, and smarter electricity tariffs could instead reduce cooling costs over time. Either way, the time to begin that conversation has clearly come.

Further reading

You can find original research from Matthew Scott at the Chartered Institute of Housing and Mehri Khosravi at the University of East London below:

From building codes to behaviour: Strengthening extreme heat adaptation policy in the United Kingdom – May 2026

Heat Adaptation in the UK: Policy Brief – October 2025

A nation unprepared: Extreme heat and the need for adaptation in the United Kingdom – June 2025

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