Tag Archive for 'social housing'

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Housing waiting lists in Parliament

By chief on 12/02/2009. 1 Comment

Yesterday the House of Commons debated a Conservative Party motion on housing waiting lists:

That this House notes that social housing waiting lists have increased to a record 1.8 million families, over 4.5 million people, over the last 12 months; recognises that the Government’s policies have reduced levels of house-building across all tenures; cautions that the number of families waiting for social housing is rising to record figures; expresses serious concern that the number of children living in temporary accommodation has doubled in the last 10 years; warns that the Government’s changes to the system for counting rough sleepers will drastically under-estimate the problem; further notes that the Government’s top-down

… Read the full post

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

Councils bribing tenants shock!

By NL on 07/02/2009. 9 Comments

In apparent confirmation both that the Times is now a tabloid newspaper and that today was a quiet news day, this was the lead story in Saturday’s Times.

I’ll just quote the opening sentence:

Council tenants are being offered £30,000 bribes or cottages by the sea to vacate their homes for credit crunch victims as Britain faces a critical social housing shortage.

The only accurate part of that is the social housing shortage. Funny how that only becomes news when Times readers are getting worried they might need social housing themselves. Nonetheless, there is a critical social housing shortage and it is a serious issue. Sadly not one the Times … Read the full post

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

Local Housing Authorities to build new homes… perhaps

By J on 21/01/2009. 0 Comments

Local government finance is a fascinating area. Honestly.

Those local housing authorities which still retain housing stock are required keep records of their housing income and expenditure. They also operate a Housing Revenue Account (“the HRA”). The HRA is required to balance each year and, if there is a surplus, that surplus is paid to the Government and used to cover shortfalls in the HRA of other local housing authorities – see, generally, Part 6 of the Local Government and Finance Act 1989.

Section 313 Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 introduced a new s.80B into the 1989 Act. It would provide for the Secretary of State (or the Welsh Ministers) … Read the full post

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

It's the end of the world as we know it

By J on 11/11/2008. 5 Comments

Housing Minister Margaret Beckett dropped a bit of a bombshell yesterday.

The Government has (according to leaks in the Times) responded warmly to a CIH proposal to end secure and assured tenancies as we know them and replacing them with fixed term contracts which are reviewed every 3 or so years. The idea would be that, if, at the end of the review period you’re financially able to survive in the private sector (whether as a renter or a owner-occupier) you should be required to do so. In effect, social housing becomes a temporary stop-gap for people, save for those who are too vulnerable to survive in the private … Read the full post

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

New PRS Report

By Dave on 25/10/2008. 0 Comments

Ok, I’m angry again.  It’s really out of character as I’m usually very mild mannered.  Here’s a question: what do you do if you’ve paid a group of people over around 10 years to come up with a series of proposals to regulate renting relationships (ie the Law commission) but you can’t live with their final reports?  Well, you could do nothing, which was the government’s preferred strategy, but a lot of people out there think that the Law Commission’s suggestions were pretty sensible (although I’m in the “some good, some daft” category) and those people are beating the drum.  Alternative strategy: pay somebody else to come up with a … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, assured-tenancy, Housing law - All, Regulation and planning and secure-tenancy. Tags: , , , .

Social Housing Problem Solved! (not really)

By NL on 20/10/2008. 6 Comments

There are supposed to be, currently, 1.6 million families (or 4 million people) waiting for social housing. This is expected to rise.

But, in an unexpected perk of the crisis of global capitalism, 335 of those families might get somewhere thanks to the buyout of unsold developers’ stock by HMG. This is a £13 million pound tranche of what is apparently a £200 million fund to buy up unsold private built stock for social housing. So far this has bought up 2000 homes, we are told (1665 before this announcement, then).

I’m a little curious about the figures. 335 homes for £13 million equates to about £39,000 per site.  … Read the full post

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

Brownfields to Brown homes?

By NL on 15/07/2007. 0 Comments

I’ve been adopting a wait and see approach to the Brown government, but if this report in the Observer is true, it is most certainly a good thing. Councils are apparently to be permitted to build more housing stock and possibly have rent income released back to them to do so.

I’ve called for this before. The reasoning  is simple. Housing Associations can’t and/or won’t invest the capital on anything like the scale required. The private sector was always going to be hopeless in providing housing for the low income (and only the most utterly deluded of Thatcherites ever thought otherwise). Historically and for the foreseeable future, it takes state … Read the full post

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