Tag Archive for 'policy'

Dear Mr Shapps

By NL on 11/01/2011. 18 Comments

My word, what a fountain of press releases you have been lately. Quite takes me back to the heady days of John Healey. But it is this press release I want to talk about, the ‘Neighbours from Hell’ one.

You announce that you:

will introduce a new additional mandatory ground for possession, so those tenants with a track record of anti-social behaviour can be evicted from their council or housing association property much more quickly.

Ministers believe this will lead to a faster and fairer courts process – being found guilty of housing related anti-social behaviour in one court will provide automatic grounds for eviction in the county court, removing

… Read the full post

Posted in ASB, FLW article, Housing law - All, Possession and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , , .

Carrots and sticks – travellers’ sites

By NL on 01/09/2010. 2 Comments

News from Mr Pickles and the DCLG

Item 1. The Government is to bring s.318 Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 into force, finally according travellers on authorised sites the same security as those who come under the Mobile Homes Act. Hurrah.

Item 2. Planning circulars regarding construction of authorised travellers sites are being scrapped. Apparently because Councils complained about being forced to build on countryside and undertake compulsory purchase. Actual examples of either are welcome if anyone has come across them – we’d be interested.

Item 3. The regional strategies have already gone.

Item 4. ‘Plans for further powers for councils to combat unauthorised development’. Awaited…

Item 5. ‘New Homes … Read the full post

Posted in FLW article, Housing law - All, Licences and occupiers and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , .

Sunday Misc.

By NL on 08/08/2010. 0 Comments

Some bits and pieces from the weekend…

New websites 1
The OPSI and Statute Law Database sites have been combined into one new site for statute: www.legislation.gov.uk. However, the databases are the same and the current estimate is that about 50% of the statute is up to date, in the sense of containing all subsequent amendments. While statutes that have subsequent unincorporated amendments are marked as such, as per the SLD, this remains unsatisfactory for anyone who needs current statute – which is anyone in practice – as noted in the whole Timothy Leigh/iLegal kerfuffle. We don’t link to the SLD and now legislation.gov.uk versions of the key … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Uncategorized. Tags: , , , .

Pulling the Rugg out from under them

By NL on 10/06/2010. 2 Comments

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has now confirmed that not only the National Landlord Register is finished as a proposal. Also dead in the water are regulation of letting and managing agents, and compulsory written tenancy agreements.

Councils are ‘urged to use the wide range of powers that they already have at their disposal’ to deal with bad landlords. Quite who is to deal with dodgy letting and managing agents is not clear.

No further regulation of the private rental sector is to be expected.

In other news, cuts of £360 million to Criminal legal aid are confirmed. Civil legal aid shivers at the footstep on the stair…… Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , .

Housing policy dribbles

By NL on 08/06/2010. 7 Comments

Or the good, the bad and the ugly from the Housing minister and the Communities and Local Government secretary.

Grant Shapps, housing minister has been setting out some plans, or perhaps aspirations. Mostly, these seem to involve encouraging people to buy houses. And encouraging mortgage lenders to lend more to people to buy houses. Via an unspecified “structural change” in how supply meets demand. Sounds like a plan, and one we haven’t seen before…

On rented accommodation, Mr Shapps confirmed that the national landlord register mooted under the last government will be scrapped. The rest of the Rugg review recommendations and being considered – more to come shortly, but … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All, Regulation and planning and Various (non-housing). Tags: , , , , , .

The good, the bad and the aesthetically challenged

By NL on 29/06/2009. 0 Comments

‘Building Britain’s Future’, a broad Government policy direction document, has been put out and must be regarded as an early draft of the Labour election manifesto. As people may well have heard, social housing and the allocation thereof features in the plan.

If you skip to page 82 of the full PDF, the suggestions are laid out in tantalising vagueness. Given the ‘to be announced’ nature of most of the contents (and, one presumes, the election based provisionality of much of it), what is actually in there?

The good -

we will consult on reforming the council housing finance system and allow local authorities to keep all the proceeds

… Read the full post

Posted in Allocation, Housing law - All and secure-tenancy. Tags: , , , .

Caroline Flint speaks her brain

By NL on 05/02/2008. 5 Comments

Caroline Flint being brightIn a time when the shortage of social housing is at something of a crisis point, the housing minister has some thinking to share with us. Unfortunately, it is this. (Also BBC news page and the Guardian).

Let us make the rash assumption that this proposal to eject work-shy malingerers from their council tenancies is not an empty piece of vote catching cynicism, in fact let us go so far as to assume she might actually mean it. What we are then left with is something very silly indeed, lacking as it does both carrot and stick for those subject to this return of the un/deserving poor distinction.… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , , , .
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