Anthony lives in a 1970s bungalow owned by his local housing association in Greater Manchester. His home was part of an energy efficiency pilot scheme, where the housing association installed solar panels, triple glazed windows, new doors and cavity wall insulation. The retrofit works have brought his home up to Energy Performance Certificate B, which means, in energy performance terms, his 1970s bungalow is now pretty much good as new.
It’s clear from talking to Anthony – on a visit with his local Labour MP – that the work had made a real difference to him. Not just cost savings, but also the benefits to his health. He told us:
“The solar panels are great – some days the smart meter hardly moves and it’s keeping my payments down. The triple glazing is amazing; it’s so quiet now, where it was noisy before. “Overall I feel like the heat stays in my house and I haven’t needed to have it on as much. “This work has changed my life completely.”
You hear stories like Anthony’s whenever you visit residents who’ve benefitted from investment in the energy efficiency of their homes. And there’s an increasing number of them. In a quiet revolution, housing associations and councils across England have spent the last few years piloting ways to make homes cosier and greener. We’ve now got approaches that work in a range of circumstances; what we need is the support to roll these out to more homes.
That means a long-term plan for home energy efficiency. The reason retrofit has never reached scale before is the stop-start, feast and famine approach to funding that consecutive Governments have adopted.
The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, which contributes to the cost of energy efficiency upgrades in council and housing association homes, is a good example. Last Autumn’s bidding round offered up to £800m of match-funding to councils and housing associations. The round this Autumn is worth just £80m. A welcome top-up, but not the long-term, predictable funding that councils and housing associations need.
Why do we need support from Government? Simply, because the cost of energy efficiency works is huge. The housing association sector alone is planning to invest £70bn by 2050 in the fabric, heating systems and components of their existing homes. But fully decarbonising all housing association homes – vital to deliver on net zero ambitions like Labour’s green power mission – will cost at least a further £36bn.
Government support helps us fill that gap. Every penny the Government invests in energy efficiency is a penny that doesn’t have to come out of budgets for much-needed new social housing.
And there’s consensus across our sector on what’s needed. We want to see the current Government bring forward the balance of their pledged £3.8bn for social housing decarbonisation as soon as possible. That would create the certainty our sector needs to continue their good work.
In the longer-term though, we need a much more ambitious plan to deliver energy efficiency improvements in social housing – and in other tenures, too. There’s broad consensus across those working on greening our housing that a commitment of at least £6bn per year is what’s required to roll-out energy efficiency improvements at the scale needed to tackle our cost of living, energy security and climate change crises.
That’s why – at Labour Housing Group’s retrofit fringe in Liverpool – we were pleased to hear Shadow Minister for Clean Power and Consumers, Jeff Smith MP, reiterate Labour’s commitment to delivering a £6bn per annum warm homes plan by the end of a Labour Government’s first term.
Our homes are fundamental to our health and wellbeing. Decent and affordable homes like Anthony’s must be available for everyone, but right now they’re not.
The lack of a long-term plan for housing has led to the housing crisis we are living through today. The issues we face around housing are systemic. If we don’t act to fix the housing crisis, things will get much worse for people living in England.
A sustained commitment to funding energy efficiency works at scale is a vital part of the long-term plan for housing that we need.
Social housing has a retrofit model, we know what works, but we need the support to roll out that model at scale. It can start in the social rented sector but moving quickly into the private rented sector, where standards are worst, and into the owner-occupied sector.
So we need support from all political parties to invest in energy efficiency. It’s the biggest single thing parties can do to make sure that more people benefit from works like those to Anthony’s home; improvements that – in his words – have changed his life.
Rhys Moore
Rhys is the Executive Director of Public Impact at the National Housing Federation
At the Labour Housing Group AGM in February 2023, we debated whether the Right to Buy (RTB) for council tenants should be reformed or abolished. The majority of members supported reform.
The mover of the motion to abolish RTB, Martin Wicks, wrote a blog criticising the outcome.
I proposed the amendment making the argument for reform, so feel I should reply.
The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years and I think that a motion aimed to mandate the Labour leadership to adopt an unpopular policy is a mistake. The right wing press will attack us for being against homeownership, and working people aspiring to gain more financial security. In addition, we should not be seen to be telling 1.4m working class families who have bought their own home that they have done something wrong.
Due to the political risk there is little chance of the Labour leadership prioritising the abolition of RTB. However, there is a realistic chance of the leadership signing up for reform, especially if proposals reinforce their devolution agenda.
I do not ‘oppose the campaign to end the Right to Buy’, as suggested by the title of Martin Wick’s blog. I support a campaign that involves talking with working class people, debating the issue and if possible winning the argument. We have to be aware of the charge that we are a largely middle-class party telling working class people what is best for them.
A nationwide ban on RTB is a blunt instrument. The housing crisis is experienced differently in different areas. Whilst the case for stopping RTB is compelling in areas of high housing stress, there are other areas where social housing is less in demand and RTB has stabilised communities. Reform directed towards reducing the negative effects of aspects of RTB will be harder to vilify than a blanket ban. Reform has to be based on the principle that if the Labour leadership supports RTB, because it supports homeownership and giving some working class families greater financial security, it must be prepared to compensate those facing the negative consequences, families on the waiting list and council tenants living in homes that desperately need investment.
In her conference speech, Lisa Nandy talked about council housing being a locally controlled and collectively owned asset. If a government requires this asset to be sold in order to meet wider policy objectives then it should step in to replenish it. This means a commitment to replace the homes sold and providing councils with the funding they need to maintain their housing stock. If it seems a big ask for a Labour government to prioritise spending public money on reforming RTB, the Chartered Institute of Housing estimates that the Treasury has made £47bn from RTB. A small fraction of this amount coming back to councils will make a massive difference. A way to reduce the public money required to compensate communities is to require homes to be sold much closer to their market value; the effect will be to reduce the discount.
The principle of compensating communities for accommodating national priorities, such as infrastructure projects, new houses, industry and wind farms, is increasingly accepted.
RTB represents a huge transfer of wealth to 1.4m working class people over a 43-year period – albeit that the transfer happened in a random way, with those living in the most popular council housing benefiting to the greatest extent. For the first time, some working class people had an asset that they could use to help their families when they hit a crisis.
RTB allows working class people who want to own their own home to stay within their communities. Paul Watts in his book Regeneration and its Discontents[1] writes that some working class people view RTB as strengthening for them and giving their children the ‘right to stay’ in their home. Council tenants have a secure tenancy, but the 2016 Housing and Planning Act demonstrated that this security could be taken away by a hostile government.
An issue to consider is differential financial outcome between council tenants who exercise the RTB and those that do not. Council tenants who have paid their rent for 40 years have effectively paid off the cost of building their home. However, when they die, they will leave no asset for their children. We could consider a cash bonus for long-term council tenants.
This Tory Government has been tightening succession rights, so adult children who have lived their whole lives in a council home are sometimes forced out when their parents, the tenants, die. We should certainly restore succession rights.
Resident activists have struggled heroically to maintain the liveability of their estates in face of funding cuts and Conservative Governments who believe that council housing should be the tenure of last resort for ‘needy’ families. Jane Jacobs, author of the seminal work the Death and Life of Great American Cities[2] understood that to bolster under-threat neighbourhoods you needed to encourage those earning a little bit more to stay within, rather than flee, their community.
A policy solution could be to continue to allow existing tenants to be able purchase their homes. However, introduce a requirement that if they want to move out, or their children want to sell the property on their death, that the local authority should have the option to buy-back the property, with an appropriate allowance for the increased value of the property in the intervening years.
The exception to the continued RTB for existing council tenants should be for those moving into new build properties. These homes are particularly precious and should not be lost at a discounted price.
We need to confront the negative effects of RTB. It has resulted in the transfer out of local, democratic ownership of 1.4m homes, at a time of acute housing shortage. Whilst the focus on the housing crisis has been on urban areas, council housing is a precious resource in rural areas. Access to a council house is often the only way that families can stay in the area in which they grew up. In areas of high housing stress, the abolition of either RTB or the discount is entirely reasonable. The other alternative is for the government to fund the gap between the RTB sale and market value, so that councils can build replacement homes.
We also need to consider the effect on other council tenants of sales below the market value. When a property is sold the council loses the rental income. The RTB discount is £87,200 nationally and £116,200 in London. The sale price is based on a tenanted rather than vacant possession valuation. The valuation can be held for up to 18 months, which means that the benefit of house price inflation is lost to councils. Councils have to predict expected major works costs for five years after the initial sale and have to follow complex leasehold legislation. If they get either wrong, leaseholders cannot be recharged for works and tenants have to pick up the bill.
A consequence of the underfunding of council housing is that when major works do happen the recharges to leaseholders are high. Many councils have schemes whereby tenants fund a three-year interest-free loan to leaseholders to help them pay their charges. When major works recharges have been particularly high, some councils have capped recharges to leaseholders, requiring tenants to cover the shortfall. Council tenants are required to cross-subsidise leaseholders more affluent than them. There is important research to be done on the total cost of selling homes at less than their market value and subsequent undercharging. It is a crude assumption, but if we assume that the combined cost of the under-valuation and under-charging is £50,000 per property, at today’s costs, on total of 1.4m sales the amount lost is £7bn. This amount could have made a significant difference to the upkeep of council homes, and probably saved Michael Grove from having to emote about the ‘deplorable condition of some council homes’.
The current Government has caught council housing in a perfect pincer movement. Whilst being responsible for underfunding maintenance it is offering to act as the tenants’ champion against their ‘incompetent landlords’.
Housing Associations have resisted the imposition of mandatory RTB because it would undermine their business plans, but no such consideration has been given to councils.
Over the last 20 years, whilst the number of social rent homes has been declining, the private rented sector has been growing, to the extent that there are now more properties in the private rented sector. The consequence is that hundreds of thousands of people who need the security and affordability of social housing are now living in the unregulated private rented sector. Lisa Nandy committed a Labour Government to reversing this trend in her Conference speech, with a pledge that there will be more social rent homes than those in the private rented sector by the end of the first term. For this to be achieved, in addition to new council house building, tens of thousands of homes need to be transferred from the private rented sector to councils and cooperatives. If left unchecked RTB is a powerful engine to frustrate this aspiration. Nationally, 40% of RTB properties are now in the private rented sector, with most London Councils reporting over 50%. An incoming Labour Government will need to legislate to include in the lease of future RTB sales a covenant prohibiting the renting out of the property.
What is particularly unpopular with other estate residents is when ex-council properties end up with slum landlords, short-term lets or as AirBnB properties, all of which work against the efforts of resident representatives to sustain communities.
With regard to RTB properties already rented out, covenants cannot be introduced retrospectively to stop this. However, the opportunity to buy properties back will arise. The majority of council housing is over 50 years old; an incoming Labour government will need to invest a substantial amount of money to make these homes liveable, safe, damp free and energy efficient. Leaseholders will need to contribute to these significant major works costs. For many buy-to-let landlords their asset will no longer be profitable and they will welcome the option of a sale back to the council. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has found that adding to the stock of social housing through buy-backs is often less expensive than building new homes.
Whenever the state undervalues an asset and underfunds the administration of its disposal, it invites fraud and dishonesty. Companies and criminal gangs have preyed on vulnerable and cash-strapped tenants. In addition, families have funded aging relatives to exercise the RTB so that they can benefit financially when they die. An incoming Labour government should commit to funding a more robust vetting regime.
LHG member Steve Hilditch reports that Westminster Council is forced to buy back RTB properties that it sold at a discount, at five times the original cost to help meet its obligations to people who are homeless. A Labour government committed to sound public finance should not allow this to continue.
In this blog I have argued for the range of policy initiatives, such as halting RTB in high housing stress areas, reducing the discount, placing restrictive covenants on future RTB sales, central government compensation for lost council income and finance to replace and buy back homes. The effect will be to devolve decision-making powers and finance to local democratically elected representatives, reinforcing Labour’s devolution agenda.
[1] Paul Watts: Regeneration and its Discontents (2021) [2] Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)
It was a moment of great drama when long-time former Labour Group Leader, Paul Dimoldenberg, won his nemesis Shirley Porter’s old seat of Hyde Park Ward last May and Labour took control of the council that had once been notorious for her ‘Homes for Votes’ policy in the 1980s.
Labour arrived at City Hall with a detailed Manifesto and a raft of housing commitments. One promise was to establish a Housing Review as part of the ‘Future of Westminster Commission’. Strong groups of experts were appointed to fundamentally examine housing supply and homelessness and a new citywide Residents Panel was appointed to look at how to improve the management of the council’s own homes.
The Review started by studying in detail the pipeline of schemes on the council’s own land, quickly re-setting the relationship between Westminster and the London Mayor, leading to the council gaining over £60m extra in grant in addition to a major increase in the use of its own resources. Scandalously, the Tories had refused to hold ballots on the two big regeneration schemes, Church Street and Ebury, meaning that they did not qualify for grant. By going out to residents and explaining our strategy we held very successful ballots, gained tens of millions of extra grant, and increased the number of social rent homes in these two projects by 158. Overall, we added over 300 council homes for social rent in current Council building schemes.
The current state of play is that over the course of this council term (to 2026/27) we are on course to build over 1000 social rent homes (nearly 700 net taking account of reprovision) on our own land, alongside around 200 new homes for intermediate rent. Our longer-term pipeline contains many more truly affordable homes, and we are continuing to look for ways to strengthen this position further. Council homes for social rent on council land is our mantra because we have around 3000 households in temporary accommodation and over 4000 on our housing register and, when it comes to building social rent, land we already own gives us the best bang for our buck.
Despite all our efforts we will only put a dent in the problem rather than solving it – only sustained government action over a decade and more will do that. But every home provided means a family or individual has a real opportunity to build a life in a genuinely affordable home.
There is no silver bullet on housing supply. We have made a good start on our own land, but we will leave no stone unturned to try to get more truly affordable homes. For example, we have embarked on a revision of the City Plan to get more truly affordable homes out of the planning system (for example by requiring small luxury developments to contribute to tackling the housing crisis) and we are talking to the city’s registered providers about what more they can do.
There is also great urgency to tackle the crisis in temporary accommodation (TA) that we inherited, especially as homelessness is likely to grow as the housing market deteriorates. We are putting around £170m into acquisitions for temporary accommodation which should provide around 270 homes either in the city or within a 30-minute bus journey. We will inevitably still rely on procurement of private rented homes, but we are determined to try to make sure they are of a decent standard and as close to support networks as possible. This is not at all easy, given that the Government’s frozen local housing allowance means less than 0.5% of homes in Westminster are affordable for those reliant on housing benefit.
We are also working on improving the package of support to households in TA to reduce the impact it has on them, and especially on children.
Even people on decent incomes struggle to find affordable homes in Westminster, so through changes to our Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document and reform of our practices we are repurposing ‘intermediate homes’ so they directly benefit key workers, mainly those earning less than £60K, rather than general demand. We think a local offer to health and transport workers and others will be very popular and will help our city in many ways. Collaboration with the private sector and other public bodies over their developments and use of local assets will play a crucial part in helping build the key worker housing we need for the future.
More than most places, Westminster is associated with global dirty money being put into property that is often not used as a home. We are adopting an empty homes strategy and have appointed an empty homes officer to assess the scale of the problem and tackle the most egregious cases and find new ways to help homes back into use and to bring life back to communities at risk of being hollowed out. This also fits our dirty money strategy which has attracted attention because of the strong action being taken against ‘candy shops’ as well as on residential.
These are our main initiatives on housing supply; we have also been active on the private rented sector, starting a review of housing allocations, and rethinking our Rough Sleepers Strategy – another big issue with a Westminster focus. Our Residents Panel has been getting to grips with a wide range of issues in housing management, including starting work on our proposed Repairs Charter and our Leaseholders Charter, and we are delivering on our promise to increase the number of housing officers and to re-open estate offices.
There is a strong overlap between housing and our vitally important work to help people through the cost-of-living crisis. We have set up a £1m+ rent support fund to assist those facing the 7% rent increase without full benefit support and, amongst other things, we have provided over £14m in cost-of-living support to local families and are extending our free school meals offer, currently for all primary pupils as of January, to include nursery and key stage 3 pupils thanks to some help from Sadiq Khan.
The housing crisis is now so severe that there is no way out without strong and sustained government action. The General Election is drawing closer but, in the meantime, we will do everything we can to make as big a contribution as possible from Labour Westminster.
Cllr Adam Hug is the Leader of Westminster City Council.
Steve Hilditch is Chair of the Westminster Housing Review
The tragedy of the death of Awaab Ishak as a direct result of the poor conditions in his social rented home has rightly awakened a storm of protest about the state of rented housing in this country. It is shaming to have to admit that our rented housing is failing so many people, but particularly the public sector stock that many of us are so proud of.
Michael Gove’s attempt on the Today programme on 24th November to lay the blame for mouldy walls and damp conditions entirely on social housing providers is unfair and just does not hold water. The Tory Government should take some responsibility for where we are now – but it won’t, of course.
Firstly, the point should be made that the housing sector has had to deal with massive funding pressures since the Tories came into power in 2010. This started with the Spending Review of 2010 which saw investment in building new housing association homes cut by two thirds. Caps on subsidy, followed by rent caps (to save on Housing Benefit expenditure), and the end of funding for Decent Homes improvements meant that the sector stopped putting enough cash into maintenance. We also saw continual extensions of the Right To Buy reducing incomes from rents, and housing providers diverting funds into work to support tenants to cope with shrinking incomes through welfare “reforms”. The plain truth is that the failures in the stock are systemic and were predictable, and Gove’s attack on the sector is totally opportunistic and hypocritical.
It is really shattering to hear so many tenants still saying that their landlords are not listening to them, but Gove’s claim that the current government is on the side of the tenant does not compute. He said they are bringing forward legislation “to allow us to hear the voice of tenants more clearly”, but he clearly does not remember that it was the Tory-led Coalition Government which, in short order after their election in 2010, as well as abolishing the Tenant Services Authority and the Audit Commission, thereby reducing the regulation of social landlords, also abandoned both National Tenant Voice (NTV) and the National Tenant Council, leaving tenants with no national representation at all. NTV would have had 4 distinct roles:
advocacy
research
communication
support
By contrast, as Marianne Hood pointed out in LHG’s recent In Conversation session, Robert Jenrick (former Secretary of State) saying he wanted tenants to feel more empowered did not mean, as Marianne comments, that tenants willbe more empowered under the Tories’ plans. Indeed, the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill currently going through Parliament contains no mechanism to hear the collective voice of tenants, gives powers to the regulator but none to tenants, and provides tenants with little by way of accountability or redress, despite claims made by the Tories. Tenants – seen as consumers with a range of choices – will have no additional sanctions; only the Social Housing Regulator has these powers.
Marianne also pointed out that genuine effective participation can lead to better design, better policies, and better use of scarce resources, and indeed to the avoidance of costly mistakes. The diminution of the tenant participation movement by the Tories from 2010 onwards – along with the end of tenants being required to be on Housing Association Boards – is part of the story of the tragic waste of life at Grenfell and elsewhere, as shown in Rochdale and sadly, likely in other places too.
As I show below, some responsibility has to be taken by architects keen to use the latest but untested ideas of new design and new materials. We can also guess that structural problems, becoming rife in the private house-building in recent years, are likely to affect social housing too, since the problems are largely due to cost-cutting, under-supply of building inspectors, and poor regulation of the construction industry.
It is also shattering to hear that landlords are still alleging that their “lifestyle” is to blame for the damp and mould. 46 years ago, one of my first tasks as a new housing aid worker covering the North East of England was to help families living in a fairly new council estate who were lumbered with electricity bills of £200-300 a quarter, an unthinkable amount in the mid-1970s. The ceiling heating installed there was simply not suitable for the concrete “scissor” blocks, and many of the maisonettes were not only cold but had green and black walls, furniture rotting from the mould, and soaking wet carpets. As happens today, tenants were told they were not managing the heating properly, should stop drying clothes inside the rooms, and to turn up the heating and open the windows. The estate was demolished in the 1990s, with no-one in any doubt that the cheaply-built mass-produced concrete homes, and the ceiling heating, had not met the council’s original vision of the estate as a “bold pioneering showpiece development”.
Of course the many stories about damp and mouldy homes heard since the inquest have been these problems in the private rented sector too. Michael Gove tries hard to persuade us that they are taking action to make life safer and more secure for private tenants. The abolition of S.21 no-fault evictions, first promised by the Tory Government in April 2019 is still awaited: the Renters’ Reform Bill will not go before the House of Commons until well into 2023, if we are lucky. Legislation to prevent retaliatory evictions will be included: surveys done by Shelter in 2014 led to the conclusion that around 200,000 private tenants had been evicted after asking for repairs to be carried out.
The cut in the numbers of Environmental Health Officers employed by local councils is also a huge contributor to the lack of enforcement on poor housing conditions. In 2019, Unison found that EHO budgets per head of population had more than halved – falling by 52.92% between 2009 and 2018 – and enforcement visits by EHOs had dropped by nearly a half. CIEH (the environmental health professional body) reported in 2021 that 9 out of 10 EH teams had used agency staff in 2020 because of lack of resources or recruitment problems, and 56% of councils had vacancies left empty for 6 months or more. Teams which now cover Covid-19 planning and contact tracing, food hygiene, emergency planning, trading standards, and business advice, in addition to their housing work, are widely said to be struggling to deliver some of their statutory environmental health duties.
Finally, Gove’s statement on the radio that everyone has the right to a home fit for habitation would be great if it were true. Whilst the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2019 introduced by Karen Buck MP gives landlords a duty to make sure that homes are safe, healthy and free from hazards that could cause the tenant and their household serious harm, there is as yet no right to a home enshrined in UK law. LHG and the Labour Campaign for Human Rights are together doing our level best to ensure that this right is built into English law when we have a Labour Government in place. This would indeed ensure there is effective enforcement, redress for tenants, accountability of all landlords, and a voice for tenants, both individually and collectively.
As Karen Buck herself points out, “with the Human Rights Act itself once again under attack by this Government, we must remain focused on what can be achieved and must be demanded right now, to end the misery endured by so many people trapped in unfit homes.”
Sheila Spencer is the Secretary of the Labour Housing Group.
The damning verdict of the Awaab Ishak inquest has thrown a spotlight on the poor housing standards faced by many tenants across Britain. In Rochdale, where I am a Councillor, this tragedy has obviously hit home.
Widespread media coverage means that most people have read about this awful case and seen the photos of the house where two-year old Awaab died, as a result of mould which the landlord – social housing provider Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) – failed to deal with. I can’t stop thinking of Awaab and his family.
National and local news outlets have rightly, in my opinion, reflected public sentiment: the buck for RBH’s failures stops with the housing association’s senior bosses including Chief Executive, Gareth Swarbrick. Michael Gove demanded a meeting with him earlier this week, but so far, no one from RBH has stepped down.
Arguably, this is an exercise in blame avoidance – the Housing Secretary is keen to ensure the Government doesn’t take the rap for this, despite the fact that it’s part of a national problem. Many people living in social housing across the UK are suffering due to inadequate maintenance after over a decade of Tory cuts in the sector. The new cap on social housing rent increases, announced by the Chancellor the Autumn Statement, will make things even worse.
Mr Gove stepping in ‘from the top down’ is also at odds with what would be happening here, if the social housing provider was adhering to its own mission statement.
RBH is an independent, separate entity to Rochdale Council. It was previously an arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO) but became fully responsible for the borough’s council housing stock – over 12,000 homes – a decade ago, in 2012. RBH chose to call itself a ‘mutual’ rather than a housing association, and frequently emphasises its claim to be ‘the UK’s first tenant and employee co-owned mutual housing society’ with organisational values such as ‘responsibility’, ‘equity’ and ‘democracy’.
In relation to ‘democracy’ RBH says, on its website: ‘We are democratic. Our democracy is rooted in our mutual status and evidenced in our governance through our Representative Body and Board. Our tenants, employees and communities have a voice and power over what we do, and how we operate.’
This is simply not the case.
RBH does have a ‘Representative Body’ from which the only elected representatives of the community – two Labour councillors, one of whom is the Council’s portfolio holder for housing – were removed by RBH officials at the start of this year. They publicly disagreed with the housing association’s plan to demolish council flats in Rochdale town centre. RBH is not allowing the Council to put the representatives it has nominated on this panel.
Labour councillors have also questioned RBH’s credentials as a ‘mutual’. Under a proper mutual system, the tenants and communities RBH purports to empower would have democratic control, and surplus would be re-invested in the housing stock. In Rochdale, RBH executives have been enjoying repeated, substantial pay rises.
Following the coroner’s verdict on RBH this week, Rochdale Council’s housing portfolio holder has intervened by writing to them. It is a strongly worded letter and I agree with its content, but I’m sorry to say: it’s only a letter. This is the opposite of ‘communities having a voice and power’.
One reason this sad case stands out is that a mouldy home making people ill is something one might expect to see from an irresponsible landlord, hellbent on making a profit at any human cost, in the private rented sector. Awaab Ishak didn’t die in private rented housing, though.
Social housing providers need to make a surplus: enough money to invest in, and improve, their stock. Unlike in the private sector, social landlords’ main concern is not profit making – arguably they should not be doling out continued, significant pay rises and quashing scrutiny from elected representatives.
All bodies whose work significantly impacts the community, like RBH does, should have some form of democratic representation on their boards from a local authority. Social housing providers should also refrain from placing directors of other housing associations on their boards as this does not result in adequate scrutiny when it comes to decisions about executives’ pay.
Political oversight (or at least involvement) should come from the most local level possible. This is a vital element of ensuring that social housing providers listen and respond to people’s needs, at a time when – as this case tragically illustrates – standards appear to be declining.
Without input from community representatives with confidence and ‘know how’ about how boards and local democracy work, social housing providers like RBH will continue to fail to acknowledge and understand public opinion. Most importantly executive directors should feel that, when they are making decisions about the lives of so many people, ‘the public’ are sitting in the room.
We are in the middle of interrelated cost of living and housing crises. There is much more we need to find out about the state of the social housing stock across the country and questions about standards do need to be asked, because many of the people this affects are the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
Councillors across the country have important skills to contribute in these areas.
Perhaps a future Labour Government could pass legislation to ensure that social housing providers have local authority representation on their boards. This would help to ensure that ordinary, local people have a stronger voice on these critically important issue.
Elsie Blundell is a councillor, the Chair of Labour Housing Group North West branch and sits on Labour’s National Policy Forum.
Right to Buy (RTB) – argued to be the most successful transfers of wealth since its introduction in April 1980. Yet despite successfully giving aspirational working-class families the ability to participate in the property-owning democracy it once again is under scrutiny.
Incredibly over 1.9 million homes have been sold through RTB since its inception, a take-up that demonstrates its sheer popularity. Once commonplace under Local Authorities the offer has now been made to tenants of Housing Association (HA). But for many this is a step too far.
Labour, Guido Fawkes and Shelter condemn the proposal
On the right, we have seen Guido Fawkes condemn the “buy a house on benefits” scheme as a “stupid idea”. Shelter has claimed extending RTB “couldn’t come at a worse time”. While also suggesting “the government should be building more social homes, not selling them off”. Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Lisa Nandy, recently called into question Boris Johnson’s announcement.
She challenged Johnson over the feasibility of allowing people to use housing benefit towards a mortgage. Tweeting recently whether lenders are “on board” with the Prime Minister’s first proposal after his disastrous vote of no confidence. Nandy also claims the new proposal would “make the housing crisis worse”.
Questions over feasibility and acceptance by the market
The scheme could help 17,000 families a year according to the report on the pilot published in February 2021. However, it found half of the homes under the scheme weren’t replaced despite promises of “one-for-one” replacement. Those “replaced” were often found to be as a more expensive form of tenure. This in large part driven by a Tory grant programme favouring such forms of tenure. Arguably fair kop to call into question.
Notwithstanding the above, we have seen the rise of the for-profit registered provider backed by private equity and institutions. Who have been piling into the sector lured in by government backed income in a supply constrained market. Whether social or affordable rent, or controversial shared ownership, the private sector has been licking its lips.
If these capital providers can accommodate such government-backed income streams, why cannot lenders?
But the proposals actually spur on new supply
Secondly, the argument around the need for one-for-one replacement seems one based on a lack of understanding of basic arithmetic. For those on the left, many feel a tenancy for life forms part of housing as a human right. On that basis, whether an aspirational working-class family lives in a social rented home, or one where they have exercised the Right to Buy, morally this principle holds true. Under RTB total housing stock does not deplete and new build from recycled capital ultimately still contributes to new supply.
The family who can now use their in-work benefits towards a mortgage become the beneficiaries directly of the subsidy. Not the HAs who fail to do repairs and pay their executives investment banker wages. At a time where the National Housing Federation announces an independent panel to review the poor-quality homes endemic under its watch, why would we want to prevent aspirational working-class families from the opportunity to fix and maintain their own home, if they have the means to do so. Ultimately giving them an opportunity to escape the ever-lasting trap of poor housing management they currently endure under HAs.
But how, after all, in a supply constrained housing system does adding new housing stock make the housing crisis “worse”?
Global market headwinds make opportune timing to support demand
All sides have now sought to strawman the Right to Buy, blaming it for the loss of much needed social housing stock. The debate has not become one of supply. Instead some argue these recent measures merely add to demand-side pressures, which an already distorted market does not need. Yet in a time of globally increasing interest rates and a recession, when else is there a better time to broaden access to those on low incomes and counter market forces.
Furthermore, HAs often have low levels of debt against them with the homes valued on the books at Existing Use Value (EUV). Such a low level of debt allows the Government to provide meaningful discounts and unlock wealth for working class families. Of course, the HA lobby and HM Treasury will have kittens if they have to sell their silver, but ultimately who benefits?
Boris Johnson is playing to the aspirational working class
Whatever your politics, broadening access to an affordable home or home ownership should be the end goal. Yes, the Labour Housing Group has taken a stance to abolish Right to Buy. But I argue this policy is targeted at those Labour must seek to win back from the Tories. Boris Johnson is sending a key message to the millions of tenants living under often dreadful Housing Association conditions, that he cares about them.
Meanwhile, Labour and much of the left-leaning housing industry, condemns what has previously been a hugely successful policy for those who have benefitted from it. Right to Buy and the need to provide more social rented homes are not mutually exclusive.
Without means-testing tenancies how else can we recycle capital from those in social housing who can afford to buy?
Many of those who will exercise their right will be those who can afford to, who are still living under the benefits of a social tenancy. These include the members of Parliament who remain in their social rented flat, while earning a top 10% salary in the Commons, as well as the 117,000 households (16%) in London living in social rented accommodation resided in by the top 40% of earners in the capital.
But if we are not to bring in means testing of social rented accommodation throughout a tenancy, is not recycling capital from sales into the provision of new homes an admirable end goal?
I certainly think so if the sellers can keep the receipts. We can argue about whether we “replace” less than half with social or affordable rent. Or we can recognise the use of the benefit systems ability to increase the overall level of stock in a housing market beholden to NIMByism. After all an election message to aspirational working-class families that they have a chance at closing their own personal wealth inequality gap is compelling.
Christopher Worrall
Chris is the Editor of Red Brick blog and sits on the Labour Housing Group Executive Committee.
He currently is Chair of Poplar and Limehouse CLP, co-hosts the Priced Out podcast and is the Local Government and Housing Member Policy group lead for the Fabian Society.
In recent years, many policy-makers have recognised that people need to be put at the heart of decision-making on long-term challenges like social care and climate change. At local, regional and national level, citizens’ juries and assemblies have been instigated to enable ordinary citizens to deliberate and reach conclusions together. Here in the North of England, a first-of-its-kind Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury has recently made 19 recommendations to the social housing sector. So why was a Jury needed, what has the process involved, and what have tenants recommended?
A quarter of the North’s carbon emissions come from our existing homes. If we’re to meet the challenge of net zero, that needs to change. That means upgrading homes to make them as energy efficient as possible and transitioning home heating to renewable sources. It’s a huge challenge – we estimate over 4million homes across the North will need energy efficiency works by 2035.
That’s 4million homes, personal spaces, that will require change: the prospect of potentially disruptive works that might mean clearing your loft, having scaffolding around your house, and needing to redecorate afterwards. However considerate the tradespeople are, that’s a prospect most of us wouldn’t relish.
The Northern Housing Consortium’s members – councils, housing associations and ALMOs across the North – told us that the fact that ‘these are people’s homes’ was top of their minds when considering retrofit – they saw meeting the challenge of net zero as much as a tenant engagement issue as an asset management issue.
So we came to the conclusion that tackling climate change in the North’s homes and neighbourhoods needed to start by listening to the people who live in those homes and neighbourhoods – and the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury was born.
Five of our members – First Choice Homes Oldham, Karbon Homes, Salix Homes, Thirteen and Yorkshire Housing – worked with the NHC to bring deliberative democracy to the social housing sector. Shared Future CIC brought their extensive experience of citizens juries and assemblies, and we established an expert Oversight Panel to ensure the independence and integrity of the process.
7,500 tenants across the North were invited to get involved, and from the expressions of interest received, a Jury of 30 tenants was selected, using random stratified selection to ensure they reflected the diversity of the population of tenants across the North, and a range of attitudes to climate change.
The Jury met for 30 hours over the Summer, taking evidence from over 20 expert commentators, to answer the question set for them by the Oversight Panel – ‘How can tenants, social housing providers and others work together to tackle climate change in our homes and neighbourhoods?’ Commentators included academics, technical experts, fellow tenants, housing association representatives and a Government minister.
This was an intensive process. The Jury gave up their time to go on this journey together, and reflected that they had:
‘Brought together different levels of knowledge, experience and different opinions to create shared understanding and shared solutions in the form of recommendations that we have all worked hard to create and agree upon’.
Recommendations on costs and managing disruptions to tenants
Education, raising awareness, communications and housing association collaboration
Tackling climate change in our neighbourhoods.
On technology, tenants concluded that landlords needed to take into account the urgency of climate change: ‘We are running out of time’. The jury wanted landlords to speed things up, whilst keeping an open mind about how technology might develop in future. The quality of installation was very important, and tenants wanted to see the best quality of technology used, with landlords working to ‘optimum standards’, and independent inspection of completed work. Residents recognised that ‘new skills are needed’ and suggested that housing associations should be proactive and look to train and employ their own skilled workforce.
Throughout the Jury’s deliberations, costs were a real concern. Tenants wanted assurances that the huge cost of retrofit wouldn’t push rents up; were keen to ensure that retrofit works delivered on the promise of lower energy bills, and that residents weren’t left footing bills for redecoration. They made practical suggestions – for example, the Jury was concerned that residents might experience fuel poverty as they adjusted to the most efficiency way to use new heating technologies and suggested a pot of money that could help people who found themselves in this situation.
Disruption was a real worry, and the Jury made practical suggestions to minimise this, calling for clear and timely information from their landlords, with named regular contacts who could work with them throughout the process. Tenants asked for clarity about the input that would be required from them – stressing that they can’t take time off work without notice: ‘Full disclosure from both sides, on all matters, will help efficiency, lessen delays and be most cost-effective.’
It was clear that Jurors had learnt lots through the process, and they were keen that awareness was raised with everyone in their communities – so that residents had ‘the information to be able to make their own decisions’. The Jury stressed the importance of good communication, sharing progress and being open about delays and problems. They wanted to see housing associations working together and with councils and other agencies.
Jurors were clear that tackling climate change didn’t end at the front door and made a series of recommendations around the use of green spaces, highlighting the potential for growing food, for collaborating with local businesses like supermarkets; and for showcasing action taken by tenants
This was a hugely inspiring process – and it’s difficult to summarise the breadth of insights and wisdom that the Jury process elicited. Read the Jury’s recommendations, and take the Jury’s advice: ‘Go forward with an open mind, listen to what we have to say and above all – let’s take action and act together’.
Brian Robson
Brian is the Executive Director (Policy and Public Affairs), Northern Housing Consortium.
The housing composite motion which was passed at Labour’s recent conference did not just focus on Labour policy for a future Manifesto. It called on the Party to “demand that the Government takes action now to end the housing crisis” by a series of measures listed (see How Labour must hold the Government’s feet to the fire on the housing crisis). These included a large scale council house building programme and ending Right to Buy.
The Labour Campaign for Council Housing believes that conference vote should be used as a springboard for developing campaigning activity. We have drawn up a model resolution (see below) for CLPs/union branches which
Calls on Labour at the national level to implement the composite resolution as a matter of urgency and
Proposes that Labour council groups, be they in power or opposition, put a motion to their council declaring a housing emergency. Councils will therefore publicly call for large scale council house building, ending right to buy etc.
The idea of councils declaring a housing emergency came from our members in Cornwall where the crisis is particularly acute as a result of the second homes/holiday homes phenomenon. We think this is an idea which Labour and trade union members should pick up on. Councils should declare a housing emergency as a springboard for campaigning to pressure the Government to fund the building of social rent homes, end RTB and to adequately fund existing homes.
Since 2010 the number of council homes in England has declined by 203,000. There has been an increase in building by housing associations over that period but they have built more and more homes for sale/shared ownership and the social housing they have built has been largely at so-called affordable rent.
Anybody who is renting is facing a ‘perfect storm’ of increased gas prices, food price inflation (foodbanks are bracing themselves for a big increase of people approaching them), the loss of the extra £20 Universal credit and so on. We can expect rent arrears to rise. Social tenants face five years of above inflation increases courtesy of Government policy and London housing associations have even come up with the mad idea of above inflation rent increases for 30 years.
There are signs of a big increase in numbers on the housing waiting lists. My own local authority, Swindon, has seen the households on its list increase by 33% in the last year alone. The Local Government Association has warned that numbers on the list could double over the next year owing to the impact of the pandemic, the end of the furlough scheme, and increasing evictions. Councils are paying a fortune to place homeless people in private accommodation because of the acute shortage of council homes.
The ratio of earnings to prices for median market homes in England is 7.65 times median earnings and 6.91 times lower quartile earnings for lower quartile homes. For new builds there has been an extraordinary increase to 9.60 times median earnings and 9.77 times lower quartile. The average price for median new build in England increased from £190,000 in 2012 to £304,000 in September 2020, the latest available statistics.
Even lower quartile homes increased over that period from £142,995 to £223,995. Promises to turn generation rent into generation home ownership are ridiculous at these prices. Housing is not a competitive market. The big builders are not going to build on a large enough scale for prices to fall since that would erode their profit margins. They have never built for social need.
According to a recent Yougov poll 61% of Tory MPs are in favour of the Government funding more social housing. The Local Government Association, with a Tory majority has said that there can be no resolution of the housing crisis without councils once again being large scale builders. They have called for the Government to fund 100,000 social rent homes a year.
Yet there is a gulf between the word and the deed. They have relied on private lobbying which will not shift the Government. To shift them mass pressure is required, combining councillors with tenant groups, campaigns like Shelter and those directly suffering the consequences of the housing crisis. The pandemic has given us a sharp reminder of the connection between housing and health. Covid has had a far greater impact in poorer and over-crowded homes.
“Generation Rent” will only be liberated from its current circumstances, being forced to live in the private rented sector, with high rents and often poor living conditions, living at home with parents, or sofa surfing, by the building of social rent homes on a large scale.
We are asking branches/CLPs and union branches to move our resolution and use it as a means of promoting campaigning activity aimed at building pressure on this Government of U-turns to make another one on funding of council housing, existing and new build.
Model resolution
“This CLP welcomes the housing composite resolution passed at the Labour Party conference which included the main demands of the Labour Campaign for Council Housing. It called on the Labour Party to “demand that the Government takes action now to end the housing crisis by”
➢ Fully funding councils to deliver the building of 150,000 social rent homes each year, including 100,000 council homes
➢ Ending Right to Buy
➢ Reviewing council housing debt to address underfunding of housing revenue accounts
➢ Fund the retro-fitting of council housing to cut greenhouse gases, provide jobs and promote a shift from outsourcing to Direct Labour Organisations
➢ Ending Section 21 (no fault) evictions
It also said: “Conference also calls upon Labour to place these actions at the centre of its housing policies.”
The passing of the composite resolution needs to be a launching pad for campaigning activity. We therefore
➢ Call on the Party nationally to implement the composite resolution as a matter of urgency.
➢ Call on our Labour Group to propose that our council declares a housing emergency to campaign for those key demands. This may include lobbying local MPs, the Local Government Association and other organisations, working with tenant groups and trades unions.
The CLP agrees to affiliate to the Labour Campaign for Council Housing.”
ITV’s releases ‘Surviving Squalor: Britain’s Housing Shame’ on Sunday at 10:15pm. Unquestionably highlighting some of the most horrific housing conditions endures by people and families living in social housing in the UK.
Red Brick has long forewarned about the return of squalor. The national scandal that has been the neglect of housing. But as housing associations and local authorities are the only owner operator game in town, is it time for a rethink?
For many, these conditions are everyday norms. The perpetrators are not rogue private landlords, but housing associations and local authorities. And calls for regulatory intervention are falling on deaf ears.
Some of the worst offenders are receiving the most funding
The need for social housing has never been starker. So stark even the Tory Government has made an allocation to fund 30,000 new social homes. Notably following a recent funding announcement under the Affordable Homes Programme. In London, Sadiq Khan has seen £3.46bn distributed. The bulk of the funding is conditional on an emphasis towards social rent.
This funding comes with new conditions attached. These include all new buildings requiring sprinklers and that no combustible materials exist in the facades. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the biggest beneficiary for funding affordable housing in the capital was not a local authority. Instead Europe’s largest housing association, Clarion Housing will receive £240m to deliver 2,000 homes, of which 1,250 are for social rent.
Previous concerns over controversial mega mergers are coming home to roost
Clarion Housing was a merger between Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing Group in 2016. This occurred under the then Minister of State for Housing and Planning Gavin Barwell. Two of the housing associations in the Circle group had chronic problems with its repairs and maintenance services.
Circle had found itself downgraded as a result of ‘serious issues of disrepair’. Nevertheless, the mega merger went ahead. This was despite John Biggs, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, condemning the lack of local accountability in the transfer to Clarion of Old Ford (Circle). The original stock transfer from the local authority crucially had this as a term in the original transfer agreement, which was completely disregarded.
Highlighting local concerns about the merger, and lack of local accountability, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali questioned the Government. In response, Barwell argued that the housing associations involved believed the merger “will create a more efficient organization”.
Red Brick has long argued for the Mayor to undertake a full audit of board membership of housing associations. While not against those with private sector experience, we need to balance this with expertise in social housing, alongside experiences of tenants and residents.
Clarion Housing continues to dodge regulator judgement despite serious controversies
Clarion Housing have been constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons. Not least down to the tireless campaigning of those affected, particularly across London. ITV Political Correspondent, Daniel Hewitt, has been legendary in his journalism. In particular through coverage of the appalling conditions on a housing estate of 500 homes in South London.
It appears too many residents in 2021 are living in squalor. In this situation finding themselves infested with vermin and plagued with damp issues. The scale of the most recent case prompted consideration whether Clarion Housing breached standards by the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH). The RSH had cleared Clarion just three months prior following an investigation into a major repairs scandal 5 years before. That time concerning buildings in Tower Hamlets.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg, red tape and bureaucracy in the Housing Ombudsman is holding back a tide of cases
Last November, Clarion featured in another investigation, this time by the BBC, investigating how they manage complaints handling and service charges. To date, further action has been actively delayed by the Housing Ombudsman, giving excuses such as not being able to take it on given the different tenures of those effected within a group complaint. The Housing Ombudsman is the ultimate gatekeeper to the RSH.
Still to this date, both shared owners and social tenants continue to pursue their case with the Housing Ombudsman. Almost three years after originally raising concerns with the landlord. Yet these recent regulatory judgements do not fill them with much hope.
But what does this achieve? Cases with the Housing Ombudsman can take up to in excess of a year to process. Even after having to slog through a complaints process that can be manipulated to take over a year in itself. Experiences all too familiar for those whose landlord is Clarion Housing. Along with other dysfunctional housing associations and local authorities.
For those living in the rat infested damp ridden flats that don’t even break social housing regulations, they are left to despair. For those currently living in temporary accommodation, or those who have been made homeless for weeks on end, after repeated leaks and floods of sewage water, lack of action from the Housing Ombudsman or RSH evaporates any sense of hope.
Clarion Housing Resident, Tower Hamlets 2021
Sector needs to do more to prioritise existing housing conditions
But what is the sector doing to tackle the problem of poor housing conditions? The short answer is not enough. Co-Founder of the Social Housing Under Threat campaign (SHOUT), Tom Murtha, aptly pointed out something did not quite sit right as to why housing conditions were not even on the agenda at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s ‘Housing 2021’ annual conference. This was an event that Housing Minister Christopher Pincher could not be bothered to attend in person. Coupled with Daniel Hewitt’s lack of invitation to speak, as pointed out by Tom Murtha below:
Wondering why this is not on the agenda at #housing2021 and why @DanielHewittITV wasn’t invited to speak? Are we not concerned that some tenants are forced to live in unsafe and unfit homes and their voices are ignored? #housing21https://t.co/quahLmdW57
What was on the agenda was housing’s role in health and wellbeing. In addition to this was a panel featuring the RSH’s new Director of Consumer Regulation. Since January 2021 Kate Dodsworth has taken up the mantel. She has also talked about “the road to consumer regulation”, Although called for housing associations to fix their issues now and to “not wait for the regulator to come round in a couple years”.
Perhaps after ITV’s ‘Surviving Squalor’ is released they should come knocking somewhat sooner.
Lacking transparency, Housing Ombudsman statistics are massaged to cover the backs of its largest members
Kate is the former CEO of Gateway Housing, who topped the tables in the Housing Ombudsman own “complaints failures index”. This is despite only having found to be 9 times at fault between 2017/18 and 2019/20. Clarion Housing in comparison were at fault a staggering 129 times.
Determinations by Housing Ombudsman 2017/18 to 2019/20
Oddly, the index weights the number of determinations by how many homes each social landlord manages. In a way, this makes larger landlords appear lower down the rankings, despite having higher total numbers. Larger organisations claim they are more efficient – as aforementioned by Lord Barwell. But if true, bigger organisations should be indexed more heavily based on size. As opposed to the other way round.
In the latest landlord performance data published by the Housing Ombudsman, complaints received on Clarion Housing about complaint handling has seen a 250% increase in 2019/20 compared to 2017/18. Over the past three years Clarion Housing has received 1,899 complaints, of which 42.5% are related to property conditions.
What is not transparent from these figures is the number of tenant’s and leaseholders impacted by the complaints. By way of example, over 500 homes were affected in the ITV investigation, but these are not logged as individual complaints. Nor are they split out by tenure.
Social media is making prevalence of cases harder to ignore
In Channel 4’s ‘Grenfell: The Untold Story’ the poor treatment of residents by both landlord and local politician was all too revealing. It revealed how the then MP Victoria Borwick urged a mother concerned about being without water for days to “take baths with people next door”. This exemplifies the growing sense of the “us and them” society that we know is so deeply corrosive to our cohesion as a nation.
This remarkable footage emerged from a meeting concerning repairs and maintenance. It provides such crucial evidence of the plight put forward by many residents, many of whom are no longer around.
Snippets from this weekend’s ‘Surviving Squalor’ also highlight the ineptitudes of some local authorities too. Chronically ill Mehdi was living with water leaks contaminated with “significant faecal contamination”.
His landlord?
Lewisham Homes – a recent nominee for the Tpas England Awards Shortlist. While TPAS expressed their shame at the conditions some tenants are having to endure, they highlighted that their awards cover a range of categories. Admittedly, not just “managing homes”.
Real capitalism in the interest of humanity can help solve our low-income housing issues
So herein lies Sadiq’s funding conundrum. At present grant can only be provided to local authorities or housing associations. Some of which face reputational damage resulting from serious causes of concern and ESG related controversies.
Under the Labour-led Wheatley Act 1924 we as a country subsidised private builders to create homes for those on low-incomes. If we are to provide grant to the private sector conditional on owner operation at social rent levels, we would enable funding packages to be less reliant on those guilty of such poor management. Instead, we see the lion’s share of London’s funding for example go to a housing association with the most complaint determinations against its name. Clarion Housing.
At present we are dealing with the inability of the country to meet the heavy burdens now placed upon it. Back in 1924 private enterprise had little to no interest investing money in houses for letting purposes. Yet today we see operators indeed willing to invest. Whether this be through the burgeoning Build-to-Rent sector, or the nascent Single Family Rental sector, the local authority and housing association is no longer the only possible investment partner to bear these costs.
At the time, John Wheatley described his socialist housing funding proposals as “real capitalism – an attempt to patch up, in the interests of humanity, a capitalist ordered society”. Yes you read that correctly. The first socialist Labour government knew it had to patch up these interests through what it described “real capitalism”. For this reason, it is not outside Labour principles to fund housing at social rent levels for direct provision by the private sector. Nor has it ever been.
We need to diversify who owns and operates social housing
At present, only Registered Social Landlords can own and operate affordable housing under the eye of the regulator. Often forward funding from housebuilders and developers who do not have a long-term interest in the construction of the property. We have seen Clarion Housing’s own Group Director of Development highlight the “lack of commerciality in the sector”. It comes as no surprise that we see just as many issues with new build social housing, as we do with buildings coming to the end of their life.
In America federal states fund the construction of affordable rental housing for those on low-incomes through conditional tax credits. They provide this to both for-profit and not-for-profit owner operators through its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) programme. By being sector agnostic both state and federal government drive competition, and thus commerciality, into funding programmes.
We should explore progressive innovative new funding models of low-income rental housing. For those on the left we cannot shun the private sector. We must work progressively with it to provide more options for those in most housing need. This will allow government to be less reliant on some of the worst offenders to deliver housing for those on low-incomes.
The ultimate goal?
To make fewer people have to survive squalor.
Christopher Worrall
Editor of Red Brick.
He sits on the Labour Housing Group Executive Committee, is Chair of Poplar and Limehouse CLP, and co-hosts the Priced Out podcast.
In part two of this three part blog contribution we continue to hear from inside the tent to what extent our planning system is truly representative and democratic. Do cries of ‘social cleansing’ hold any veracity, or does left-wing NIMBYism refusal to accept trade-offs manifest itself to the same effect?
Once upon a time, I would’ve stood on Reginald Street in Deptford in searing anger. Even with the land cleared and the hoardings up, I would still be bitter about what my colleagues had been put through. But today I’ve found myself mellowed. As I watch the diggers at work, laying the foundation for 117 new social homes, I wryly smile to myself. Today, the fight for these homes seems so easy, so tiny, so inconsequential.
The old Tidemill school site on Reginald Road had long been earmarked for the development of new homes. Instead of allowing the vacated site to fester, Lewisham Council agreed to a ‘meanwhile use’ leased and the area was handed over to a volunteer community group to operate. With the land, they created a ‘community garden’.
A ‘community garden’ is a bit of a misnomer, as it conjures up the image of an area open and shared by all in the neighbourhood. In reality, due to a lack of volunteers, by the time of its closure, the garden was overgrown, locked up, and open for a few hours each Saturday. Insiders say that a small clique living on well-heeled streets over in Brockley, operated the site as their own semi-private enclave. No big deal, we felt, because at least the land was semi-utilised.
The trouble only started when the council request the stewardship of the land to be returned so that our long-awaited housing development could get underway. Reneging on their promise to hand back the land when the ‘meanwhile use’ was up, the community group refused to hand over the keys. And thus, the ‘Save Tidemill Garden’ campaign arrived.
It quickly snowballed.
Opposite the development site, sits the Birdnest pub in Deptford. I like the boozer, but if I say it wears its counter-cultural chic a little too earnestly on its sleeve, you might get what I mean. It’s filled with students, old rockers and geezers, and was a perfect local meeting point for the Save Tidemill campaign.
Close your eyes and picture a row of wooden tables, on each one, sits a different segment of the Save Tidemill campaign’s coalition.
Table 1: The founders of the garden, mostly your classic NIMBYs, primarily asset-rich and comfortable. They’ll miss their garden when it’s gone and they don’t want pesky social housing spoiling their Saturday afternoon sun-spot.
Table 2: Assorted Left-wing groups. Nearly all older NIMBYs as well, these lot are driven primarily by political opportunism and they want to find a wedge issue to campaign against the local Labour council (internally in the Labour Party, or externally). For this group, they’ll reject any council-led development programme from the pin-head of ideological grounds. Any development that is not 100% council ‘target rent’ is rejected, even if the private sale properties on-site are necessary to fund the building of the social homes. It means that in reality, they reject any new large-scale affordable house building.
Table 3: Eco-Nimbys, probably Green Party members, you know the ones — the type of people who weep over fallen trees on the HS2 path, despite HS2 being a piece of crucial infrastructure to increase our rail and freight capacity and reduce our over-reliance on private cars and lorries which has a huge knock-on effect on our nation’s carbon emissions and the death of more of your bloody trees.
Table 4: Anarcho-crusties / Green-Black Groups. A bit like the Eco-Nimbys but they are more inclined towards violence towards the man.
The Save Tidemill campaign only got as noisy as it did because Tables 1 & 2 framed the building of this new social housing as corporate ‘ecocide’ and therefore managed to connect with Tables 3 & 4. The campaign itself was risible. Misinformation was spread in the neighbourhood and councillors who spoke up for the scheme were relentlessly attacked. Eventually, the rhetoric spilt over into direct action.
Cllr Joe Dromey, one of the few who were brave enough to face the misinformation head-on, would eventually be attacked on the street by masked protestors. Cllr Paul Bell, who led the scheme, would take his address off the Lewisham Council website out of fear of reprisals. He had been accosted in the street as well, while leaving a council meeting.
But as nasty as the campaign got, I never felt like our plans were in jeopardy. Here were 117 new social homes, as well as 41 for shared ownership and 51 for private sale, replacing a ‘meanwhile use’ garden and an old and dilapidated block at 2–30a Reginald Road. The new green space on the development would be accessible to all unlike the Tidemill Garden, and the tenants of 2–30a Reginald Road would be provided brand new high-quality homes on lifetime tenancies. Those in housing need would be given what they deserved. The case was a no-brainer.
Lewisham Council has a Residents’ Charter that guarantees all residents impacted by a regeneration scheme are given the right to remain on their estate and guarantees an increase in genuinely affordable housing. To me, these guarantees are not only morally right, but they also make political-strategic sense.
Left-wing groups and other opportunist political opponents have desperately and repeatedly tried to leap into our estate regeneration proposals for political gain. And while they may have recruited a few new paper-sellers in the process of campaigning, they have failed to stop any major schemes.
Take the regeneration of Achilles Street, New Cross. Despite a campaign by left-wing NIMBYs spreading fearmongering and disinformation among tenants and leaseholders, an estate ballot returned 73% in favour of the regeneration. The likely outcome of this renewal will be 450 homes on site, with a minimum of 50% of the total homes built being affordable, and a minimum of 35% of the total homes built will be Council-owned homes for social rents.
Similarly, even Lewisham Council’s joint-venture with Grainger to build 324 new homes for rent off Besson Street in New Cross slid fairly comfortably through planning, with the ward’s left-wing councillors speaking in favour of the proposals. On the Besson Street scheme, 65% will be leased at market rent to fund the 114 homes which will be lease at London Living Rent. The scheme also delivered an array of other amenities for the area including a new GP surgery and community space for the New Cross Gate Trust.
The left-wing NIMBY groups rejected Besson Street because London Living Rent is not social housing. Instead, these are genuinely affordable rents set by the average incomes in the Telegraph Hill ward. Each household will sign a secure 5-year tenancy that is automatically rolled-over if they want to remain. In Lewisham, we need to build all sorts of tenures, not just social housing, and these homes are designed and will cater to our key workers who will never be eligible for social housing.
On the hoardings that line Besson Street today, someone has scrawled ‘stop social cleansing’. But in fact, these new homes will help key workers — your nurses, your police officers, your school teachers, remain in our borough near where they work. Even more absurdly, the cries of ‘gentrification’ and ‘social cleansing’ were used for Achilles Street and Tidemill Garden. These schemes offer net-gains in social housing — they are a firewall against gentrification and help low-income families remain in our community.
The left-wing NIMBYs have tried to peddle the falsehood that these estate regenerations are not supplying social housing because the new homes will be provided at London Affordable Rent — which is pegged at 2016 social rent levels. London Council target rent is now £105.87pw for a two-bedroom property, while London Affordable Rent is £158.85pw. The 13 residents of Reginald House who would be offered a new home on the development, would continue to be housed at their target rent. For the 104 homeless families being offered a new home, it’ll be a huge fall in rent and for many, the first time they’ve ever had a secure, decent home for their family.
Affordable housing funding is extremely restricted by an austerity-driven Conservative government. But as this article highlights, in 2016, Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London, managed to negotiate funding from central government for new affordable homes. While funding for social homes, at target rent, were ruled out, the government did agree to fund new homes at Khan’s London Affordable Rent. London Affordable Rent is sent at 2016 target rent levels and is deemed a social rent. While target rent levels have fallen since, year on year – a plan devised by George Osborne to reduce the housing benefit bill — London Affordable Rent has stayed static, that’s caused the disparity.
The long and short of it is that for these homes to be funded and built at all, they’ll need to be at London Affordable Rent. Working with a charitable provider and building at London Affordable Rent was the only way Lewisham Council could get this many genuinely affordable homes built at the Old Tidemill site. For activists, it’s a choice of viable developments, providing social homes at London Affordable Rent, or no new social homes at all. Sadly, I know where some groups would side.
The refusal of these left-wing activists to accept those trade-offs, reveals, more than anything else, just how out of touch they are with the lives of London’s precariat and working-poor. The median rent for a two-bedroom property in Lewisham is £365.75 per week, above the housing benefit cap. Moreover, ‘no DSS’ discrimination remains rife in the private sector. Many of our poorest residents cannot afford the private sector and if they can, they remain in overcrowded sub-par accommodation.
Even if new homes on Achilles Street and Tidemill Garden are more expensive than target rent council homes, they are seismically cheaper and more secure than the private sector. The homeless families moving into these homes will care more about a new chance in life than the fact that a registered charitable provider is supplying them a life-time tenancy and not the council. Nor are they likely to quibble about a rent far more affordable than their temporary accommodation or home in the PRS.
Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the working class.
And that’s why these campaigns do not work and never build traction beyond those four tables. Because their arguments are devoid from the lived-reality of the housing crisis and the trade-offs necessary to build new social housing. Despite our reputation, councillors are not daft. We clock that no young renters joined the chorus against the Tidemill Garden development at our local Labour meetings, even if they did follow the Momentum whip.
During Lewisham Labour’s manifesto working groups in 2017, it was noted that it was our young Momentum members who were the ones most enthused by our Besson Street plans. Not only did they like that the income generated from the scheme would help provide services for our residents, they knew from personal experience how life-changing it would be to move into long-term, stable housing in the private rented sector. Like me, they can only dream of a home at London Living Rent.
Councillors speak to residents in our wards all the time and we know that the overwhelming majority accept schemes like Achilles Street, Tidemill and Besson Street are positive. Of course, we still take precautions — we ensure we engage early on any estate regen project and we ensure the facts of a scheme are widely disseminated. On Achilles Street, we held meet-and-greet drop-ins to tackle misinformation. Yet when push comes to shove, sensitive and policy-compliant council-led schemes to build new social and affordable housing are going to have broad support.
While not as politically-heated as large estate regeneration, smaller social housing developments, such as estate-infills can be trickier. Faced by densification of their area without an offer of a new home, current tenants and leaseholders on an estate often take a ‘what’s in it for us?’ approach to the building of essential affordable housing. Moreover, infills often only remain viable if they are larger in scale than many residents are willing to accept.
However, colleagues, alongside the wider public, accept the trade-offs needed to deliver social housing schemes and policy compliant applications will often be looked upon sympathetically. Broadly, public and institutional support (i.e. amongst the council’s political group) work in tandem. It is why councillors can feel emboldened to champion our promised new social and affordable housing schemes and face down the political pressure from noisy campaigns to abandon policy complaint schemes.
But in the grand-scheme of things, I know that all these battles for social housing are small-fry. Local authorities do not have the resources to purchase new land to build social housing on. The scope of what we can achieve is extremely limited. Despite our good work, we can’t even build enough council homes to replace the ones we continue to lose from right-to-buy.
In short, only the private sector is going to get us out of this housing crisis. While affordable housing programmes have institutionalised support, across the political spectrum market-rate builds are viewed with suspicion. This suspicion leads to a widespread lack of public support for market-rate builds and in my view, this in turn leads to councillors having a pre-disposition to be swayed by NIMBY-campaigns.
In part three of this series, I’ll explain that if we don’t accept this reality, and take a new approach to development, the housing crisis will never be beaten. We need to build a new consensus — one that agrees that a lack of supply (+ building in the wrong places) is causing our housing crisis and that we need market-rate developments at large scales that we cannot deliver without reform.
This is option two, and the only one left.
Leo Gibbons-Plowright
Leo is a Labour and Co-Op Party Councillor for Forest Hill in Lewisham.
