Associations say pilot is the ‘right project at the wrong time’
Move scheme put on hold
Plans to pilot a national mobility scheme to help tenants move around England have been shelved because of a lack of interest from housing associations.
A report launched by the Homes and Communities Agency and a group of eight housing associations makes a number of suggestions about how such a scheme might work. It says incentives and support could encourage tenants to move to a home better suited to their needs, freeing up larger properties.
The last national mobility scheme, Move UK, was shut down in 2007 amid allegations of IT problems.
But the report also warns that too few housing associations are currently prepared to help set up a new national scheme. The pilot project would have been run by the housing associations themselves and not the HCA.
The report states that associations considered it to be the ‘right project but at the wrong time’, as many are scaling back non-core activities because of the recession.
In a separate development shadow housing minister Grant Shapps has announced that David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, will lead a panel tasked with exploring how to increase social housing mobility.
Mr Shapps said the task force would be made up of leading figures from across the social housing sector.
He added that any future Conservative government would facilitate a nationwide affordable house swap programme, introducing an online system to ensure that every family living in social housing has the chance to relocate and exchange their home for another one anywhere in the country.
June Barnes, chief executive of East Thames Group, welcomed the task force as a key step in developing opportunities for mobility among social housing tenants.
She added: ‘It is vital that the sector engages in developing new innovative solutions to this issue - as well as wider issues to do with undersupply and tenant choice.’
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Readers' comments (1)
Jay | 17/11/2009 3:30 pm
Whats all this about tenants choice! your joking arn't you, it's too much trouble to let tenants move, think of all that staff time and paperwork, it's much better to keep tenants prisoners in their own homes even if they do want to move It could be that they are classed as adequately housed, so of course they won't let them move, what a stupid idea? It would be nice though to have the option of moving perhaps to be nearer family or to be able to have a pet to keep them company but then their not allowed pets either in many properties and this is a growing problem is it not? Or maybe move for a better oportunity to access employment in another area. Other people have a choice of where they live so why not tenants? Who has the right to tell a tenant they can't move, why should anyone have this right,no one should be told they are adequately housed and can't move. They should have freedom of movement for whatever reason and should have this CHOICE? any mobility scheme for tenants should be supported.
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