Tag: 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.

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Is there hope for housing in the Lib Dems?

Ed Davey & SSEs Paul Smith by Department of Energy and Climate Change is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

2024 has been a year of unprecedented success for the Liberal Democrats. With the party seeing a record 72 MPs elected in July, the party has managed to quickly turn around a decade of difficulties since their time in the coalition government.

With this comes genuine power. The Lib Dems chair three parliamentary select committees, most notably the Health and Social Care Committee. Ed Davey has two regular questions at PMQs, allowing him an avenue to forge a national policy platform.

The Liberal Democrats are also in power across 68 local authorities across the country, covering over 6 million people.   

This success puts the party in an awkward space, and one which the British political system struggles to accommodate, as a true third party, well in advance of Reform or the Greens, but a fair distance from the official opposition.

Where the Lib Dems go next is up for debate. Are they the party of attention-grabbing stunts and comical bar-charts? Or are they a serious contender for government, needing to flip a mere 25 seats to overtake the Conservatives?

When it comes to housing, this duality runs deep.

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The detail

The Lib Dems had the most detailed housing proposals of any party at the election, with over 500 words on their plans across housing delivery and homelessness. Their headline pledges were as follows:

  • Building 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, majoring on community-lead development
  • Banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default, and creating a national register of licensed landlords
  • Giving local authorities, the powers to end Right to Buy in their areas.
  • Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament
  • Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents to a nominal fee

The full plan is available here, with fair detail on ending rough sleeping and empowering social tenants.

A starkly divided party

Many will be familiar with the Liberal Democrats’ divides over housing delivery, most notably at coming to a head at the party’s 2023 conference, where members defeated a motion supported by the party’s leadership which would have abandoned their target of 380,000 homes.

Some decry the party as a hub for opportunistic ‘NIMBYs’ seeking to oppose all new housing. A quick search of “Liberal Democrats” and “housing” reveals a slew of local opposition to housebuilding since the election, including in the New Forest and South Leicestershire.

But it also brings up cases of Liberal Democrats pushing Labour councils to increase their affordable housing targets in Lambeth and Southwark, highlighting inaction on an abandoned development in Wiltshire, and even facing down opposition to new homes while in administration in  the Cotswolds.

The party’s main housing figures, Vicky Slade and Gideon Amos, also have real housing experience, as a council leader and town planner respectively.

The Lib Dems in Parliament and the delivery dividing line

While some opposition parties like the Conservatives, Reform UK or even the Greens have hit out hard against some of Labour’s housing announcements, the Liberal Democrats have been more reserved in their approach.

In Parliament they have been openly supportive several of the Government’s measures, including welcoming the Government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan and voting for the Renters’ Rights Bill.

The main dividing line which they have so far placed has been on housing delivery. While the party is supportive of increasing housing supply, they have been openly critical of ‘top-down’ housing targets and have instead favoured a community-led approach, with a primary focus of delivering 150,000 social homes a year.

This was reflected most recently in Amos’ response to the Government’s NPPF reforms:

“Top-down planning diktats risk a surge in speculative greenfield permissions of the kind that the Minister is concerned about, for homes that are out of people’s reach. Instead, let us fund, incentivise and focus on the social and affordable homes that we need…”

This may be a popular rallying cry, but it ignores the reality of the past few years.

Opposing ‘top-down’ targets ignores the reality that when the last Government abandoned targets, housebuilding collapsed, and that the new Government’s approach to reinstating these has been followed by new starts increasing.

A target of 150,000 social homes a year, while admirable, ignores the fact that, even going by the more generous measure of ‘affordable homes’,  fewer than a third of this goal are currently being delivered. Using this goal as a reason to oppose new housebuilding in general, without a firm plan to deliver it, is pure opportunism.

And suggesting community-led planning as an alternative ignores the fact that few people outside of a hyper-engaged, largely more privileged minority, get involved in the planning system as it is.

While the Liberal Democrats’ vision for housebuilding may be a principled one, it appears out-of-place amid its largely more pragmatic approach. More importantly, it allows space for MPs, including the party’s Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper, to opportunistically rally against building more homes in their local area.

Is there real hope for the Lib Dems?

Unlike the other opposition parties, the Liberal Democrats have a genuine plan to solve the housing crisis, with a broad policy platform with several good ideas.

In order to have a real impact, however, the party needs to moderate its anti-housing opportunists and play less into the populist rallying cries of more minor parties. Most importantly, it needs to acknowledge that any housing policy needs the keystone of a serious plan for delivery, which recognises both the scale of the challenge and the need for a top-down approach.

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Kemi Badenoch’s shift right bodes ill for housing

Kemi Badenoch MP (North West Essex, Conservative) by House of Commons is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The 2024 general election saw the worst result for the Conservative Party in terms of share of seats and votes since its formation in the nineteenth century.

But the Conservatives’ failure should not preclude their return. Only three Conservative leaders have failed to become prime minister, and some recent polls have already put them ahead of Labour. Even a minor swing could put them back in power, with Kemi Badenoch as prime minister.

Badenoch served as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government between the election and her victory in the Conservative leadership contest, and so we know more about her housing positions than other aspects of her views. And her approach so far demonstrates a worrying drift to the right.

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Shifting right on renters’ reform

One of the biggest disappointments of the last Government was a failure to pass the Renters’ Reform Bill. In ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and bringing in new standards to the private rented sector, the legislation would have been life-changing for millions of private renters.

While Badenoch served in administrations which introduced this legislation, she quickly pivoted after the election to oppose Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which is very similar to the Conservatives’ Bill.

Speaking at the Bill’s Second Reading, she parroted the talking points of landlord lobby groups that the bill would reduce the availability of homes in the private rental sector, while failing to discuss where those homes would go.

This potential tilt away from renters’ rights was further reinforced by Badenoch’s pick for Shadow Housing Minister: Kevin Hollinrake. Hollinrake was founder and chair of Hunters’ estate agents until 2021, and was reported to have numbered among the opponents of his own government’s Renters’ Reform Bill in 2023.

Shifting right on housing delivery

Can building homes be left or right wing? Seemingly under Kemi Badenoch it can be, as housing has become part of her wider ideological conflict with the left.

This has manifested in her blaming left wing administrations in urban centres and the bureaucratic ‘deep state’ for a failure to build the homes we need.

The former continues a long-standing trend of Conservatives trying to disproportionately focus construction in urban areas.

This is for a brazenly political reason: Conservatives have long abandoned metropolitan voters and are happy to concentrate in these areas the disruption caused by building more homes. Accordingly, in 2021 they introduced a somewhat arbitrary 35% “urban uplift” to the 20 most densely populated towns and cities outside of London, and, in 2024 Michael Gove launched a review of Sadiq Khan’s London Plan as a way to criticise the mayor for failing to deliver enough homes.

Badenoch has also continued this tradition, attacking Khan on a similar basis in three of her eight speeches as Shadow Housing Minister.

Similarly, while Badenoch has made pleas to protect the green belt, she has simultaneously started to champion a deregulatory planning policy with measures to “roll back the environmental laws, the diversity and social requirements”, blaming the bureaucratic state for the failures to build more homes.

This is a disappointing hallmark of the Conservatives’ housing policy. While the party failed to meet their own housing targets, before ditching them entirely to appease ‘NIMBY’ backbenchers, their only real solution for the lack of delivery in urban areas has been, and continues to be under Badenoch, to blame local leaders.

Shifting right on migration

A further worrying trend of Badenoch’s tenure as Shadow Housing Minister has been a shift to blame migration for the increase in rent levels, stating that “The only way to improve the lives of [private renters] is to control immigration and build more homes, particularly in high-demand areas like Inner London.”

This is not a far cry from Reform UK’s dishonest blaming migrants for the lack of social housing. Unlike Reform’s argument, which is based purely on falsehood, there is some truth to the idea that any new entrants into the private rental sector will increase demand, whatever their country of origin.

However, this is only part of the picture. Migrants already have significant barriers to renting privately, including language barriers, difficulty finding guarantors, and Right to Rent checks, and so landlords when surveyed admit that they are less likely to rent to someone without a British passport. As a 2017 briefing from the House of Commons Library states:

“Research suggests that new migrants often enter the PRS in areas of low demand, filling less desirable property left by individuals moving into better housing. This may be because some groups of migrants only have access to low-paid or insecure work, but it also reflects variations in perceptions of standards and personal priorities.”

As John Perry notes, this also means that foreign nationals are more likely to live in sub-standard accommodation, the regulation of which Badenoch strongly opposes.

While Badenoch is still new in position, the direction of her housing policy so far demonstrates a concerning shift to the right, with renters, migrants and the environment thrown under the bus. This divisive rhetoric is simply a distillation of the arguments made by the Conservatives in government, and a worrying sign that Badenoch has learned little from the lessons of the past.

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A plan to boost construction industry capacity to deliver 1.5 million homes

Image by abakumada licensed by pixabay

Moving from such a low base in home building to achieve ambitious targets in a relatively short time frame will create challenges in every aspect of how the construction industry operates.

The government must engage with all the key sectors of the construction industry that will have a role in delivering their planned large-scale home building programme and develop a capacity boosting plan. Also, this plan’s success will rely on its alignment with a training and skills capacity boosting initiative

Any proposed capacity boosting plan should include two key aspects:

  • Delivery capacity building – How to structure the overall design and building of homes, neighbourhoods and towns.
  • Organisation capacity building – How to structure the development corporations and other entities charged with developing homes, neighbourhoods and towns.
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Delivery Capacity Building

How Development Corporations should be set up

To facilitate the large-scale home building programme, local development corporations will need to be created from new, as happened with the creation of the post-war New Towns. The effort and time to build such organisations simultaneously  should not be underestimated,  and a plan to adopt a ‘lean model’ corporate template set-up should be established.

In simple terms, a ‘lean model’ would mean that development corporations would outsource a sizeable amount of their workload to private sector specialist consultancies, allowing them to focus on their core mission.

Engaging consultancies could  leverage their existing skills base and know-how, and share responsibility for capacity building to the private sector, spreading risks associated with development.. This approach would enable more efficient and accelerated project completions.

How Master Planned Developments should be built out

To build at scale, larger master plan developments will be needed. Whether these will be development corporations or other entities such as housing associations, councils or private developers, an ‘enabler’ approach involving sub-developers for various asset types should be used.

An ‘enabler’ approach would involve the master developer selling on parts of an overall master plan development to sub-developers while still maintaining a level of control.

This will allow for the sharing of the delivery burden and development risks allowing the overall delivery to be expedited while still maintaining overall master developer control.

The key to maintaining overall control of what is designed and built is for the master developer to have a comprehensive design guide for all parties involved to adhere to. A comprehensive design guide provides criteria specific for private sector consultants, construction contractors and sub-developers to work to while still allowing for innovation and a broader range of products and ideas from these other partners.

Some of the master plan developments will be new towns by definition and will be developed in accordance with the planned ‘New Towns Code’.

How Statutory Authorities Involvement should be streamlined

Local authority involvement via planning and building control departments is a critical component of delivering a mass home building programme so it is essential that there is an increase in funding and staffing levels. This was acknowledged in the last budget with a GBP £500m boost in funding exactly for this purpose.

In addition, there should be a plan to significantly increase the volume of developments that can be processed by consolidating local authority workloads. This can be achieved if the current reform of the planning regulations simplifies planning by zoning or other similar proposals.

This entails a designated area being provided with a set of development criteria such as land usage, type, height, set back dimensions, etc. If developments are designed to meet these there should be no need for the local planning authority to assess each development individually.

Why its essential to incorporate Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)

Embracing all of the current Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) on a substantial scale will also enhance delivery capacity by increasing build speed, reducing costs and reducing the need for skilled labour on site. The offsite factory mass production of building components or partially assembled units has mostly worked in the past where a large volume of residential, educational, medical or other assets have been needed.

MMC has faced some difficulties in recent years, partly due to a lack of a steady product supply line, with innovation and choice not at the level of countries where this is more prevalent. The large-scale build program will resolve the supply issue, but the government’s plan should be to reinvigorate the sector with some expertise from countries where MMC is better developed such as Germany. This could be done by creating a centre of excellence or sponsoring partnership L&D programmes for UK companies to learn from foreign companies.

The plan should include ‘modular kit homes’ for self-builds by individuals, small builders or developers. While self-builds would not contribute to public housing, the UK has much potential to develop this sector, offering direct competition to the professional home building developer sector as well as adding overall housing supply.

Organisational Capacity Building

Making Development Corporations centers of delivery excellence and best practice

As noted earlier,’ establishing a wave of new development corporations will be a feat in itself, and the know-how and skillsets required for this in the current market will be limited. In addition to the ‘lean model’ , to attract the best skilled individual people in a competitive market, these new corporations should prioritise becoming ’employers of choice.’

Being an ‘employer of choice’ by having a work environment, benefits and culture that attracts the best new joiners and retains existing employees should be complemented by a substantial training programme for graduates. This should be supported by educational and professional institutions, to cultivate a high ratio of trainees across various business roles. Opportunities for upskilling and training of staff in general should be part of this, and the development corporations should aim to set the benchmark in the industry.

How to effectively monitor and control a large-scale home building programme while its being delivered by many organisations

As part of building capacity, there needs to be central monitoring and control of this large-scale home building program across all delivery entities and all local authority areas to ensure there is a level of uniformity in monitoring metrics across the board in terms of value-for-money, delivery outcomes, good design, timelines, quality products, etc.

A development corporation or any other type of delivery organisation will monitor their development work and pass on collected data to a central overarching body such as a dedicated unit within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This data is used to decide what is and is not working and can be continually assessed to enable strategy updating over the life of the programme.

To achieve this, when development corporations are established, a standardised set-up template encompassing all corporate aspects should be used to streamline the establishment of the many required development corporations and other delivery entities, ensuring synergy, avoiding disruptions, and expediting delivery. Additionally, a best practice residential development delivery template should be used, covering investment, procurement, design and construct stage gates, complete with a Project Management Office (PMO) setup for every delivery entity.

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Green populism will not solve the housing crisis

Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, co-leaders of the Green Party, with Elllie Chowns, Housing and communities spokesperson. Image by Bristol Green Party licensed under public domain

One notable moment from the 2024 general election was the surprise success of the Green Party. The party more than doubled their vote to 6.7 percent, with four MPs. This followed a string of successful local election results, which has brought the party a total of 813 councillors.

The party also came in second place in 40 seats in 2024, up from just three in 2019, and they are within a five point swing of an additional five MPs.

For a long time, the political world has treated the Greens as a curiosity with interesting but ‘out there’ ideas. But, as the party’s electoral strength builds, it is worth taking a serious look at their policy offer.

This is particularly important in the housing sector, where their proposals rely on a mix of populist myth-peddling and blunt tools to address one of the most complex crises facing the country.

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What do the Greens stand for?

On housing, the Green Party Manifesto in 2024 had four main priorities:

  • A Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter with new regulations for housebuilding
  • Investing into decarbonising housing
  • Delivering 150,000 social homes per year through purchasing existing homes and building new ones, including ending the Right to Buy
  • Regulating the private rental sector by allowing local authorities to introduce rent controls, ending ‘no fault’ evictions and introducing private residential tenancy boards to resolve disputes

Many of these policies are sensible, and several are being implemented by the Labour Government, including investment into housing decarbonisation, restricting the Right to Buy, and ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions. But the sum of these policies, alongside the Green Party’s actions outside of their manifesto, presents a worrying package which could have unintended consequences.

Stymying delivery

One notable moment of the election campaign was the refusal by the Greens’ co-leader, Carla Denyer, to support a housing target, despite being pressed on this three times by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

This is particularly problematic given that many of the Green Party’s policies would make housing delivery harder. The Party’s ‘Right Homes etc… Charter’ includes making councils spread development over small sites, which would eliminate economies of scale by larger development. Likewise, a mandate of Passivhaus Standard on all new homes in this charter would put substantial additional costs on construction with few measurable benefits to the Future Homes Standard currently being introduced by the Government.

Government policy should, of course, promote higher regulations and help smaller builders to create a more diverse industry. But mandating these high bars is a blunt tool for a complex problem.

Similarly, while academics argue the definition and the merits of rent controls, it is relatively well-established that the sort of direct control on rent levels suggested by the Greens has a negative impact on housing supply.  

Combined with the well-publicised history of Green councillors and MPs opposing new housing in their area, this amounts to a concerted effort to stymy housing supply.

This was also shown in the one recent occasion of sustained Green Party control over a local authority when they led Brighton from 2011 – 2015. Data from the Housing Delivery Test show that, in the aftermath of this control, Brighton only managed to deliver 77% of the homes it needed in 2015 – 2018, well below the 130% average of local authorities nationally. Meanwhile, data from 2019 – 2022, after four years of Labour control, shows the council delivering 130% of the homes required by the Delivery Test.

While many on the left may not be concerned with overall housing delivery, since these are mostly market rate homes from private developers, building these homes is crucial. Not only will this have a positive impact on rent levels, but it will result in more social housing being built, since Section 106 contributions from developers are responsible for delivering nearly half of all affordable and social housing. More private homes is, for now at least, key to more social homes. 

Focusing on housing myths

Meanwhile, the Greens have often peddled myths and mistruths in order to avoid focusing on real solutions.

The party’s response to Labour’s announced planning reforms was a perfect encapsulation of this, as the Greens’ Co-leader, Adrian Ramsey, claimed that:

  • There were a million empty homes, only a quarter of these are actually long-term empty
  • There were a million homes with planning permission that developers were refusing to build while not a straight debunk, a report by the Competition and Markets Authority showed, while developers do engage in a degree of ‘land banking’, this is largely due to uncertainty of a steady supply of homes, a symptom of our broken planning system which Labour seeks to reform.
  • That developers intentionally build over-large ‘executive homes’ the average newbuild home is in fact 20% smaller than its counterpart from the 1950s.

Similarly, the Greens’ manifesto included a completely redundant pledge on making developers pay for local infrastructure, which they already do through Section 106.

This was also reflected in Denyer’s answer when quizzed in the aforementioned Laura Kenssberg, where she said:

“The problem is that in so many parts of the country what we’re seeing being built is not what people need. For example what we see are large, out-of-town developments of luxury, executive homes, 4, 5, 6 bed, double garage, and yet no bus service, no doctors or dentists, no more school places. And to be honest they’re not affordable to most of the people living in the area.”

That a key part of a national political party’s housing messaging contains such blatant myths is worrying, and an irresponsible injection into the political discourse.

The allure of populism

But why focus on these areas, rather than have a discussion about the solutions needed?

In part, it may be because the Greens know that their policy platform is not yet one for national government, and so is more of a political document. Rather than providing solutions, it is instead a powerful tool to point fingers and identify ‘baddies’ that their voters can rally against.

This is exactly what its manifesto seeks to do. By advocating for rent controls, impractical or redundant development standards, and action on empty homes, it implies that all of the faults of the housing crisis are down to its ‘villains’, greedy landlords, overseas buyers and corner-cutting developers, and that regulating their activity is all that is needed to fix it.

Opposition allows minor parties the luxury of an incoherent policy platform, but the Greens’ success merits them being taken more seriously. And by playing such obvious political games, they are taking their voters for fools.

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A call for accessible housing

We are thrilled to have launched a powerful new campaign, led by a collaboration between Invisible Creations, our partner company PROCare, and Foundations, the National Body of Home Improvement. This initiative is calling on housing providers across the UK to create homes that are truly accessible for everyone.

Launched on July 11, 2024, at the House of Lords, our campaign aims to meet the growing needs of an ageing population and ensure that homes are designed to be accessible for all.

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The Growing Need

Did you know that 24% of the UK population lives with a disability(1), and 4 million of them are older adults with long-term health conditions?(2) As our population continues to age, the need for accessible homes has never been more urgent. At our launch event, Lord Richard Best put it perfectly, almost half of social housing residents are over 60. He made a powerful point: adapting our homes today will help people live independently and reduce pressure on our health and social care systems.

The importance of these changes goes beyond convenience. Falls, for instance, remain a leading cause of injury, particularly among older adults, with around 76,000 hip fractures occurring each year in the UK, costing the NHS over £2 million annually.(3) Preventive aids like grab rails and shower seats can significantly reduce the risk of falls, prevent emergency hospitalisations, and lower NHS costs by keeping people safer in their homes for longer.

Building the Right Future, Together

Dr. Rachel Russell and Paul Smith from Foundations, at the launch, shared their vision of affordable, simple changes like grab rails and shower seats that can transform lives. David Orr, Chair of Clarion Housing, also joined the conversation, stressing the importance of creating a national vision for accessible housing. He put it best when he said, “Let’s stop installing cheap, short-term solutions and focus on beautiful, sustainable changes that bring joy, safety, and independence.”

A Vision for the Future

At Invisible Creations and PROCare, we’re not just addressing today’s needs; we’re focused on designing homes that are future-proof. With over 20 years of experience, we’ve seen the profound impact of thoughtful design. We advocate for modern, intuitive features like sleek grab rails and contemporary, accessible kitchens and bathrooms, built in from the start to adapt to people’s changing mobility needs throughout their lives, empowering them to age in place and maintain their independence for longer. These changes can make a massive difference by promoting mobility, preventing falls, and providing peace of mind, all through thoughtful design and strategies for lasting change.

Why We Need Long-Term Solutions

The reality is that most homes in the UK don’t meet basic accessibility standards, and temporary adaptations often fail to provide lasting solutions. Many people resist accessible features until they’re absolutely necessary, often because these features are seen as low-quality and unattractive. When residents move out, they frequently remove these adaptations, leaving the property inaccessible for the next person.

This is where we need to rethink our approach to home design. What if we viewed adaptations not as short-term fixes, but as permanent, sustainable upgrades? By incorporating long-lasting materials, inclusive design concepts, and flexible components, we can create lasting solutions that benefit everyone and ensure homes are truly accessible for the long term.

A Call to Action

I’m urging all housing providers and professionals in the industry to join the Fit for Our Future movement. This is our chance to improve wellbeing, reduce accidents and waste, and make homes more adaptable for the future. Accessible housing isn’t just a temporary
fix, it’s a lasting investment.

We’re offering free resources and toolkits to help you take action and make homes more accessible for everyone. Together, we can create homes that not only meet today’s needs but are prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.

Visit www.fitforourfuture.today to learn more and get involved.

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Planning reforms for small and community-led builders

Building work by Brett Jordan licensed by Unsplash

Tom Chance will be speaking at a Labour Housing Group webinar: What should be in the Labour Government’s NPPF, on Tuesday 17th September.

The government’s consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) asks 106 questions. Buried in the middle are a few questions about how the planning system could support more small builders and community-led development.

Dr Tom Archer argued here in May that we need a more diverse and competitive housebuilding industry, including more community-led housing, if the government is to hit its housing targets. I represent many of the 900 community groups that have been trying to build more than 23,000 homes in a broken system. So how could the NPPF help?

Not by watering down standards and reducing the requirements for social housing. Community-led developers want to raise standards, and most Community Land Trusts (CLTs) focus on social rent.

Nor is our problem with ‘NIMBY’ planning committees overturning officers’ recommendations. If anything, we have more of a track record of the reverse, with members overturning finickity officer objections to approve community-led homes.

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The Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) review on housebuilding concluded that the main barriers to entry for SME builders are the length and uncertainty of the planning process, and the complexity, cost and information requirements.

Take information requirements. The Housing Forum found that across 21 local authorities there were 119 different types of document that might be required to apply for planning approval. The list has grown hugely over the past 20 years. In one recent case, a CLT applying for permission to build 6 homes needed 82 documents.

Drawing this up now costs CLTs around £11,000 per home, substantially larger than the £3,500 per home estimated by the CMA for larger sites.

As for the length and uncertainty, we analysed 84 applications submitted by CLTs between 2006 and 2022. The average time to get a decision was 359 days, compared to the statutory target of 56. Some, held up by issues like nutrient neutrality, have been stuck for years.

Having spent all that money, and waited a year or more, will you get permission? Even if you think that you have met all the policy requirements, you cannot be sure.

Local planning authorities do not tend to allocate many small sites, a process which would confirm the principle that they can be developed. It is more costly and resource-intensive to allocate 20 sites of 20 homes than one site of 400 homes.

The NPPF says large sites could be subdivided to create opportunities for SMEs and CLTs. But this is very rare. The Letwin Review concluded as much in 2017, but his proposed reforms have not been acted on.

So communities generally seek permission on what are known as ‘windfalls’ – sites not allocated by planners, where the principle of whether it should be developed is in question. The uncertainty is risky.

The point about this complexity, cost, length and uncertainty is its impact on finance. You will need to find at least £100,000 to prepare and submit a planning application. You have no idea if it will succeed, or be wasted money. You do not know how long it will take to get a decision. Nobody will lend you money on those terms. So new entrants need deep pockets, or depend on grant programmes like the Community Housing Fund.

We could reduce the uncertainty in a few simple ways.

One would be to expand the community-led exception site, a policy we secured in the NPPF last year. It enshrines the principle that democratic community-led developers can develop windfall sites adjacent to settlements to meet local needs, removing any uncertainty around the principle of development. But it has an arbitrary size cap that we want lifted, and it should also apply within settlements to help community-led approaches to suburban and urban infill. Many CLTs have successfully negotiated the local politics to develop disused garages, underused open space and even back gardens, as well as brownfield and greenfield sites on the edges of villages and towns.

We would also like community-led developers to be able to propose ‘community priority projects’ when local plans are drawn up. These would allocate sites, or parcels of large sites, to meet specified local needs, ringfenced for community-led development. The process could ease the pressure on officers by having communities do a lot of the legwork to establish ownership and viability, and win round their neighbours to the principle of development.

These modest reforms will help. But we really need the forthcoming planning and devolution bills to fundamentally change the balance of complexity, cost, delay and uncertainty that is hobbling the diversification of our housebuilding industry.

You can find out more about the asks of the Community Land Trusts Network in their recent submission to the NPPF consultation.

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Commemorating the centenary of Labour’s first Housing Act

Today’s housing crisis is all too stark. The number of households living in inadequate and temporary accommodation has risen exponentially, whilst rough sleeping numbers continue to increase. Private rents are increasing at the fastest rate since records began and the number of evictions has escalated. Housing pressures are not just affecting those that rent. Rising mortgage costs have plunged hundreds of thousands of households in mortgage arrears. Fourteen years of Conservative inaction and neglect on housing, particularly the gross under-provision of affordable and social housing, has left Britain facing a housing crisis comparable to those which followed the end of both world wars. The raft of housing measures recently set out by the new Labour government in the King’s Speech is heartening, but Labour must now clearly commit to funding the construction of a major programme of social housing. Such a programme will not only provide the much-needed homes for thousands of families and individuals, but it will also contribute significantly to Labour’s plans to grow the economy.

It is fitting that following Labour’s electoral success on 4 July 2024, we should take the opportunity to look back at the housing legacy of the first Labour administration that took office one hundred years ago in 1924. That groundbreaking government, led by Ramsey MacDonald, Labour’s first Prime-Minister, lasted a mere nine months due to its precarious minority status. As a result, its achievements were limited but its greatest success was surely its housing policy. Labour’s Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924, that came into effect exactly a century ago on 7 August 2024, gave a renewed impetus to the building of council houses, following the collapse of Lloyd-George’s ‘homes fit for heroes’ housing programme and a subsequent Conservative attempt to close the door on the building of houses by local authorities. Its provisions lasted well into the 1930s and led to the construction of more than 500,000 council houses.

In response to the growing housing crisis immediately following the end of World War One, Lloyd-George’s coalition government planned to provide half a million council homes, comprising generous space standards (as recommended by the Tudor Walters committee that had reported on housing standards) and subsidised for the first time by way of an exchequer contribution. The Housing and Town Planning, etc., Act 1919, more commonly known as the Addison Act (after Christopher Addison the Minister responsible for the then newly established Ministry of Health), handed local authorities the responsibility for identifying housing need and formulating plans to meet such requirements. The 1919 Act provided a generous subsidy to local councils that plugged the gap between all losses in excess of a penny rate incurred by the local authority, provided the housing schemes had been approved by the Ministry of Health. In other words, the local municipalities were guaranteed against any serious losses on their housing programmes, the state taking financial responsibility for the provision of working-class houses. In 1920, private enterprise was given access to a ‘lump sum’ subsidy provided by way of an Additional Powers Act.  However, by 1921, following an economic downturn, Addison’s policy had become too expensive. It ran out of steam and failed to produce houses in the numbers promised. By 1923, the programme came to an end, eventually producing fewer than 214,000 completions (including 43,500 by private enterprise), less than half the number planned. However, the 1919 Act did establish an important principle. The local authorities had become the instruments for the housing policy of the state. Indeed, Addison had opened the door for the treatment of the provision of housing for the working class as a sort of social service.

The 1919 Act was followed by housing legislation less bold both in terms of the exchequer subsidy payable and in addressing the housing needs of the working class. It was one that conformed to the principles of so-called sound conservative finance. Neville Chamberlain’s Housing Act 1923, the vehicle by which Baldwin’s Tory government proclaimed its ‘property owning democracy’ mantra, favoured the construction of houses by private enterprise for sale or rent, benefiting mainly the lower-middle class. At £6 per unit per year over twenty years it offered a less generous subsidy than Addison’s Act. There was no requirement for a contribution from the rates. Space standards were lowered to cut down on cost. Nevertheless, Chamberlain’s statute eventually facilitated the construction of 438,000 houses. However, local authorities were treated as mere ‘also rans.’  The Act allowed councils to build houses themselves only if ‘they succeeded in convincing the Minister of Health that it would be better if they did so, than if they left it to private enterprise’. Although 75,000 council houses were built under the provisions of Chamberlain, the Act was, in effect, a deliberate attempt to prevent the permanent establishment of the local authorities as suppliers of working-class housing. If the supporters of Chamberlain had had their way, such provision would not be a social service as Addison had envisaged.

However, Labour’s 1924 housing legislation, championed by the Clydeside MP, John Wheatley, Labour’s first Minister of Health, was both radical and ambitious. Born in 1869 in County Waterford, Ireland, Wheatley grew up in Lanarkshire, his father Thomas, a labourer, having found work in the Scottish coalfields. Wheatley himself became a miner at the age of 12. He lived with his parents, eight siblings and lodgers in a one-roomed terraced house, which lacked many basic amenities, and had shared toilet facilities and water supply. Wheatley later described the degrading conditions of such housing in a pamphlet he published entitled, Mines, Miners and Misery, where he blamed the mine owners for dehumanising the workforce. Wheatley’s political activities had initially centred around local government where he specialised in and campaigned for housing at affordable rents. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1922, leading the ‘Red Clydeside Group’ of MPs to Westminster following their triumphant showing at the election of that year. Received by George V on his appointment to the cabinet in February 1924, the king noted in his diary that Wheatley was an ‘extreme socialist’.  

Wheatley’s Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 provided for a fifteen-year housing strategy and an increase in the number of houses built each year from between 63,000 and 95,000 in 1926 to between 85,000 and 127,000 in 1928/1929, reaching a maximum of between 150,000 and 225,000 in 1934/1935. Wheatley’s Act afforded an exchequer subsidy to local councils for housing for rent at a rate of £9 and £12.50 per unit per year respectively in urban and rural locations, over forty years, shifting the emphasis back to council housing provision. The exchequer grant was conditional on the municipalities contributing a subsidy from the rates of 50 per cent of that received from the centre. Crucially, Wheatley built the foundations of his housing policy carefully, first working to gain an agreement between builders and the building trades on the expansion of the apprentice system to ensure there was the workforce to increase housing production. He also sought agreement with building materials suppliers to help limit price inflation, and wisely consulted the local authorities about his plans. As a result, the 1924 Act enabled the first ever peacetime collaboration between government, the building industry and trade unions to try to overcome the haphazard and casual nature of construction and to train workers to replenish wartime losses. Wheatley aimed at high quality standards, coining the phrase ‘homes not hutches’. However, the houses built under Wheatley’s statute were similar in size to those built under Chamberlain, but due to the deteriorating economic circumstances of the time, Chamberlain’s minimum space standards regularly became Wheatley’s maximum. Nevertheless, the houses constructed were considered to be of a good standard, requiring, for example, that homes built with a subsidy should have a fixed bath in a bathroom.

The Wheatley Act restored the powers of the local authorities to provide working class houses without first having to prove that they could not be provided by private enterprise. As such, Wheatley re-established the local authorities as part of the permanent machinery for providing working-class housing; a position that was reaffirmed in a codifying Act of 1925, following the Tories return to office in late 1924. The Wheatley subsidy was eventually repealed by the Conservative led National government in 1933. Nevertheless, by that time its provisions had resulted in the construction of more than 520,000 homes. Wheatley himself was well aware of the limitations of his housing legislation and did receive criticism from some of his parliamentary colleagues that it was too moderate. He was, however, a pragmatist stating ‘ … I have to take the materials which are available and use them, however much I may disagree with them, in order to contribute, however slightly, to the betterment of my fellow men’.

John Wheatley died on 12 May 1930, aged 60. The Wheatley Housing Group (Scotland’s largest registered social landlord) is named after him. It is fitting that we should commemorate and remember the centenary of the passing of the Wheatley Act. It represents a groundbreaking piece of housing legislation that blazed a trail for the provision of millions of good quality council homes for working people in the years that followed. In many respects Wheatley was the inspiration for Aneurin Bevan’s herculean efforts that produced over a million council houses between 1945 and 1951. It has been said that ‘the solid brick terraces which march across the inner suburbs of every British city could not have been built without John Wheatley […] the greatest of Clydesiders’. I for one will not argue with that.

Dr John Temple, CIHCM, is a retired housing professional. He served as a Labour councillor on Tyneside from 1981 to 2004. He is a member of the Labour Housing Group.

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Fast wins for more homes: how Labour can champion infill development

Burnett House, Lewisham, an example of upward extensions. Image by Kate Matison licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

The housing crisis remains one of the most pressing issues facing Britain today. With homebuilding at crisis levels, numbers of households in temporary accommodation rising, and young people struggling to get on the property ladder, Labour recognises the urgent need for action.

Labour has a powerful electoral mandate for bold and ambitious home building. There is also a need for fast wins that deliver rapid, sustainable growth in housing supply through smart urban infill development.

Building more homes is critical for economic growth. Every 100,000 additional homes adds around 0.8% to GDP during construction. However, ambitious long-term projects like new towns will take years to bear fruit. That’s why to get results we must pull other quick levers. Three ‘fast win’ policies could boost housing supply in the short to medium term, without requiring additional central government resources.

The Government can create approximately 30,000 new homes per year through carefully planned infill development, enabling residents to expand their homes, and making the most of housing association land. This approach aligns with Labour’s commitment to prioritise brownfield development and create high-quality urban environments.

We can build new homes in the right places through:

  1. Building up: Learning from successful Labour-led initiatives in boroughs like Haringey, the government should set national policy for sympathetic towards upward extensions of existing homes. This will add more living space and create new homes while preserving neighbourhood character.
  2. Street votes: The government can complete the implementation of ‘street votes‘, an initiative based on the Mayor of London’s Outer London initiative with strong centre-left support,  empowering communities to bring forward sensitive development through local decision-making. This builds on the principle of community engagement that Labour has long championed.
  3. Estate renewal: By amending national policy through the NPPF or Written Ministerial Statement, the government can make it easier for social landlords to deliver better homes for tenants. Cross-subsidy from new market homes could fund improved council housing for existing tenants and create additional social housing stock.

These policies focus on building more homes in high-productivity areas — breaking down barriers to growth and opportunity. By enabling people to live closer to good jobs, we can reduce commute times, improve quality of life, and cut carbon emissions.

Importantly, these low-key quick win approaches prioritise small and medium-sized builders, create jobs and support local economies. This is infill development done sensitively; enhancing rather than disrupting existing communities.

Labour’s vision for attractive communities is popular with voters. By making use of the potential of brownfield sites and urban areas, we can deliver the homes we need.

A small wins approach has seen success internationally. In the US, reforms to allow ‘granny flats‘ have dramatically increased housing supply in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Labour’s government in New Zealand has nearly doubled new housing permits in Auckland through smart infill policies.

By enabling more homes in existing urban areas, we can make better use of infrastructure, support struggling high streets, and improve public transport viability.

Crucially, an approach to infill development prioritises community support and environmental sustainability. A Labour Government can learn from successful Labour local government initiatives like Sadiq Khan’s tenant ballots for estate renewal in London, which have shown strong resident support for carefully planned renewal and delivered thousands of council homes.

Labour’s plan for housing represents a pragmatic, forward-thinking approach to one of Britain’s most pressing challenges. By focusing on rapid, community-supported development in areas of high demand, we can boost economic growth, improve quality of life, and create the homes that Britain desperately needs. This is how we build a fairer, more prosperous country for all.

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A King’s Speech with hope for housing

2023 State Opening of Parliament by Houses of the Oireachtas is licensed under CC BY 2.0

‘My government’s overriding priority is to ensure sustained growth to deliver a fair and prosperous economy for families and businesses…’

2009

The last time a Labour Government set out its legislative agenda was in November 2009, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and the world was reeling from the global financial crash. This was a world before Brexit, when our aspirations included ‘peace in the Middle East’, ‘to improve management of water supplies’, ‘a reformed second chamber’ and to ‘abolish Child Poverty’. The 2010s were indeed a lost decade.

What did not get a mention was housing. The recognition of housing as a key determinant of the nation’s physical and economic health, had still not been effectively made. Arguably, this enabled the subsequent annihilation of social housing grant by Grant Shapps more politically acceptable than it should have been.

Fast forward fifteen years and we are living through a housing emergency the like of which we have not seen since the 1940s. Not one part of the housing system works effectively, be it renters’ rights, the lives blighted by years in temporary accommodation (not to mention the effect this has on local authority finances), the lack of social housing, the scandal of leasehold. Add to that building safety, the need to decarbonise our housing stock and the near impossibility for anyone getting on the housing ladder without substantial help from ‘the bank of Mum and Dad’ and it is a grim picture.

The last 15 years have seen the resurgence of housing campaigns not seen since the 1960s. Organisations like Shelter and Crisis have become the nation’s conscience and they have been joined by newer players such as Generation Rent, Priced Out and the National Leasehold Campaign. It would take a brave politician to say that housing is not one of the most salient issues.

So this morning we heard how our new Labour Government is going to spend its time, and the early political capital that comes with a massive majority. And, unlike 2009, housing was at the forefront of its agenda.

Central to this King’s Speech is a proposal to kickstart homebuilding by reforming the planning system, most notably shifting local input to an ‘how, not if’ basis in areas failing to build enough housing. Doing this marks a considerable shift in the housing debate on the ground, enabling discussions to go ahead on the basis that homes will go ahead, and making it easier for communities to discuss their priorities for new developments, whether these be social housing delivery, greener homes, or infrastructure enrichment.

Reforms to compulsory purchase compensation rules will make it cheaper to build housing, and particularly the social housing which we so desperately need. And simplifying the consenting process for major infrastructure projects will make it easier to ensure that the homes we deliver are well-provisioned with high-quality green infrastructure.

Importantly, its labelling as a Planning and Infrastructure Bill is an encouraging sign that government will increasingly tie together planning for housing and infrastructure, something called for by both sectors for some time.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ failure to pass the Renters’ Reform Bill is being remedied with its revival as the Renters’ Rights Bill. Not only will this introduce the long-awaited ban on Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, but it will allow renters to challenge ‘unfair’ rent increases, apply the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to the private rental sector, and create a digital private rented sector database. These measures will provide certainty to millions of private renters across the country who live in fear of eviction with no warning or reason.

Finally, the King’s Speech set out plans to reform the exploitative leasehold system. While the last Government passed some moderate changes to make it easier for leaseholders to buy their freehold, the Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will introduce the wide-ranging measures of the Law Commission, along with banning the sale of new leasehold flats so that commonhold becomes the default tenure. For the millions living in leasehold properties this will be a welcome relief.

Detail will follow in coming days on what exactly this legislation will look like, but it shows a strong commitment to both providing the homes we need, and ensuring that those living in them have security and dignity in their tenure. 

This King’s Speech is an encouraging start for what a Labour Government can do with a majority in the House of Commons. But key for many of the important measures to fix the crises in social housing delivery, decarbonising homes, and improving quality, require public spending. After clearing this hurdle, the upcoming spending review and Autumn Statement will both be opportunities to show how much money this Government is able to commit to solving these crises.