Inside Housing
04/06/2010
View all stories from this issue.
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Minister seeks to halt house price growth
13/10/2010
House price growth should be halted to allow more people to buy homes, the housing minister has said.
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Small sites could meet demand for land
10/06/2010
All housing need could be met without building on green belt land if smaller sites are used, according to a study.
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£285m mortgage funding gap looms
04/06/2010
The Council for Mortgage Lenders is to lobby the government in a bid to ensure the £285 million mortgage rescue scheme is not axed.
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ALMO makes U-turn over England flag ban
14/06/2010
An arm’s-length management organisation which banned its staff from flying England flags on their cars has been forced into a U-turn.
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Ask the experts
04/06/2010
Q: I understand that the window of opportunity for stock transfer from councils to housing associations has now closed. Could someone please point me to the detail on this matter? Sheila D
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Association built £1m block without permission
10/06/2010
A housing association built a £1 million block of flats on potentially contaminated land without planning permission.
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Associations asked to back quality design
04/06/2010
The government’s architectural watchdog has urged housing associations to support ambitious new space standards for social housing or risk seeing them fall by the wayside.
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Authorities ditch asylum contracts
14/10/2010
Birmingham and Wolverhampton councils have pulled out of providing asylum seeker accommodation on behalf of the government.
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Birmingham to appeal equal pay ruling
10/06/2010
Birmingham council has lodged an appeal against a case it lost to nearly 5,000 women over equal pay.
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CIH overhaul opens door to all
04/06/2010
The Chartered Institute of Housing’s current review of our membership structure (‘CIH announces major governance overhaul’, Inside Housing, 28 May) will ensure that membership is attractive and accessible to everyone in the sector.
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CLG decides where the axe will fall
10/06/2010
The government has set out details of how cuts to housing and regeneration programmes will be made and which ones will bear the brunt of the pain.
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Closed Circuit
04/06/2010
It seems the new housing minister and his predecessor can’t agree on anything - not even the view from the ministerial office window. A local paper reports Grant Shapps describing, ‘a very good view of Big Ben from my office in Victoria’. But former minister John Healey’s officials have told Closed Circuit this is unlikely - unless the famous landmark has moved.
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Closure order secured over ASB tenant
04/06/2010
An association in West Yorkshire has become one of the first housing providers to successfully apply for the closure of a property for anti-social behaviour.
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Coalition to stick with HRA reform schedule
07/06/2010
The coalition government will continue with the planned timetable for changes to the housing revenue account subsidy system set out by the previous administration.
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Committee supports right to buy ban
09/06/2010
Plans to stop the right to buy for new tenancies in Scotland have been backed by a committee in the first stage report of the housing bill.
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Council houses under threat
04/06/2010
Local authorities fear the first significant council house building programme for more than a decade is under threat from funding cuts.
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Council outlines plans to end rough sleeping
09/06/2010
Westminster council has released plans it hopes will eradicate rough sleeping by 2012.
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Councillor convicted of benefit fraud
08/06/2010
A former district councillor has been convicted of falsely claiming more than £6,000 in housing and council tax benefit while serving on his local authority.
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Decent homes not a success, says HCA London boss
09/06/2010
The decent homes programme has not been successful in London, according to Homes and Communities Agency director David Lunts.
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Diverse forum
04/06/2010
For centuries communities in the UK have absorbed people from different nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and faiths with different ways of living.
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Eco-towns funding under threat
03/06/2010
Eco-town funding is under threat as part of government cuts to spending.
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EU law is not such a big obstacle for us
04/06/2010
Philip Heath’s article on EU Law (All’s fair under EU law, Inside Housing, 28 May) is dead right in making local authorities and social housing providers aware of what you can and can’t do in offering tenders for public works. Yet it also reveals how little public procurement is understood.
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FITs and starts
08/06/2010
Stuart Urquhart and Lynne Murray, from law firm TLT, give an overview of feed-in tariffs and look at some of the issues for consideration when tapping into the benefits of the scheme.
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Gang members banned from social housing
08/06/2010
A housing association has introduced a clause banning gang membership to all its tenancy agreements.
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Genesis fined £12,000 over Legionnaires' outbreak
04/06/2010
Genesis Housing Group has been fined £12,000 after an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at one of its sheltered housing schemes.
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Gentoo survey uncovers new problems for retrofit
04/06/2010
One of the country’s leading sustainable housing associations has discovered it can cost-effectively retrofit less than 3 per cent of its properties.
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Ghost towns
04/06/2010
The collapse of the property boom has left Ireland with 300,000 unwanted homes. Isabel Hardman visits one of the country’s so-called ghost estates to discover what went wrong and whether social tenants could benefit
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Government commits to Thames Gateway regeneration
09/06/2010
The coalition government has pledged to support the Thames Gateway regeneration project begun by Labour but the minister responsible for it will review how money is spent on the scheme.
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Grant reduction may hit house building
07/06/2010
Housing associations in Scotland will struggle to build homes after the government dropped grant rates by £2,000 a unit, an umbrella group has warned.
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Guidance seeks to cut emissions from new homes
09/06/2010
The Welsh Assembly Government has issued guidance on how developers can meet environmental goals.
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Have you missed your connection?
04/06/2010
Much is made of the need for joined-up work between housing, social services and the police. But as these three case studies show, applying best practice isn’t always as easy as it may seem. Lydia Stockdale reports.
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Hip new rules
04/06/2010
HIPs may be history but social landlords still need to watch out for Energy Performance Certificate rules, says Sheila Whitton
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Home Group to sell 10 per cent of stock
04/06/2010
Home Group will sell more than 10 per cent of its properties and raise £100 million in the biggest stock rationalisation deal ever seen.
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Homelessness figures fall 16 per cent
14/06/2010
The number of people accepted as homeless has fallen 16 per cent in the last year, according to government figures.
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Homeownership is goal as social housing funds run dry
08/06/2010
Housing minister Grant Shapps today announced an ‘age of aspiration’ for homeownership, but warned there is little funding for social housing.
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House building threatened by planning reforms
07/06/2010
The government’s plan to abolish regional planning and targets risks hampering attempts to respond to housing demand, according to the Town and Country Planning Association.
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In video: the house that Grant built
08/06/2010
Housing minister Grant Shapps sets out the government’s commitment to zero carbon, and builds a wall from hemp, under supervision from TV presenter Kevin McCloud.
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Jobs agency fails to support homeless
28/06/2010
Only 11 per cent of homeless people trying to get into work felt Jobcentre Plus offered them suitable employment, a report has found.
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Launch of online support to spot forced marriage victims
04/06/2010
Housing officers can now benefit from an online training tool to help them identify and support victims of forced marriage.
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Lawyers want court ruling on section 4 support fast-tracked
03/06/2010
Lawyers working with asylum seekers who must travel to Liverpool to give fresh evidence on their claims want the High Court to bring forward a decision on support for the destitute.
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Losing our path
04/06/2010
The proposed £50 million housing market renewal cuts announced last week as part of the government’s public sector savings would, without doubt, impact on some of the most fragile communities in the UK.
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Mayor urged to ditch shared ownership
08/06/2010
London Assembly Green Party member Jenny Jones is urging mayor Boris Johnson to work with communities to make homes more affordable.
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Minister unveils NI rural planning policy
03/06/2010
A backlog of planning applications in Northern Ireland will take six months to clear, the environment minister said.
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More four bedroom homes needed to tackle overcrowding
14/10/2010
More four-bedroom homes - not three bedroom - are needed to ease overcrowding, a London Assembly planning and housing committee heard.
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My views are not those of council
04/06/2010
As the page was headed ‘The way I see it’ (Inside Housing, April 16), I would have thought that it was clear that the words that followed were my own and not representative of any organisation for whom I worked or whom I supported.
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New house builder promises 600 homes
07/06/2010
A new developer launched with £100 million of private equity funding has pledged to build 600 homes in London in the next five years.
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Notting hill judged low credit risk
07/06/2010
Notting Hill Housing Group has been judged a low credit risk, giving it the potential to finance any expansion plans.
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Nowhere to turn
04/06/2010
The prime minister must honour his pledge to back Inside Housing’s House Proud campaign for the sake of those caught up in the housing crisis, says Bill Randall
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Opportunistic cuts hide long-term plans
07/06/2010
Housing professionals should draw no conclusions about future housing policy or investment from the coalition government’s spending cuts, the head of the National Housing Federation has said.
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Planning changes end density rules and garden grabbing
10/06/2010
The government is scrapping housing density targets, and changing the definition of gardens to prevent homes being built on them.
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Policy shift on elderly care
04/06/2010
A report from an influential Conservative think tank is likely to recommend that neighbours and local voluntary groups take more responsibility for reducing the isolation of elderly people.
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Quality costs
04/06/2010
Housing association chief executives have hit the headlines this week after being dragged into the row over public sector pay. Housing minister Grant Shapps may have gained some publicity by rehashing the results of our salary survey from September last year. However, the fact that housing associations are independent bodies seems to have been conveniently lost in translation.
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Residents face court over grass cutting charges
09/06/2010
A housing association in Gloucestershire is taking its freeholders to court after they refused to pay service charges for grass cutting.
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Residents to move from Southwark block
12/08/2010
Councillors have decided tenants and leaseholders in a Southwark tower block must be moved immediately.
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Retrofit agenda needs a firm lead
04/06/2010
The cost of retrofitting England’s housing stock to deliver a drop in carbon emissions of at least 80 per cent by 2050 is around £500 billion.
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Rockers hand £62,000 to housing charity
15/06/2010
Rock band Rage Against the Machine has helped homelessness charity Shelter raise £185,000.
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Shadow of doom
04/06/2010
Iain Duncan Smith has staked his job on improving the housing benefit system but what sacrifices will he need to make to achieve this? Isabel Hardman finds out why the housing sector is bracing itself for major cuts
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Shapps to be focal speaker at Harrogate
04/06/2010
Housing minister Grant Shapps is to give a keynote speech at this year’s Chartered Institute of Housing conference and exhibition in Harrogate.
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Southwark revamp in response to fatal blaze
04/06/2010
Southwark Council is to separate its joint housing and environment department after a fatal tower block fire raised management concerns.
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Storm clouds gather over housing schemes
04/06/2010
House builders and planners across the UK have launched desperate bids to save vital regeneration schemes from being washed away in a flood of government cuts.
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - 70a Aubert Park, Islington, London
03/06/2010
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - New Build 1 Greenoak Housing
03/06/2010
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - One Earth Homes, Upton Square, Northampton
03/06/2010
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - Rocks Green
03/06/2010
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - Sanford Housing Co-op, New Cross, London
03/06/2010
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Sustainable Social Housing Best Practice - The Retrofit and Replicate House, South London
03/06/2010
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Tenant evicted for using home as a brothel
13/10/2010
Birmingham council has evicted a tenant accused of using his home as a brothel.
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The dawn of a new era
04/06/2010
What details should we look out for in the new legislative programme?
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The invisible man
04/06/2010
When Michael Jackson approached Adullam Housing Association’s homelessness team he didn’t officially exist. And there are more and more people like him who fail to appear on official lists, reports Martin Hilditch.
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TSA in tie-up to tackle ASB
04/06/2010
Housing regulator the Tenant Services Authority is set to join a multi-agency board dealing with anti-social behaviour in London.
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Ugliest estate in Wales is knocked down
16/06/2010
A Vale of Glamorgan council estate branded the ugliset eyesore in Wales is being demolished.
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Unison urges TSA members to return
04/06/2010
Unison has written a begging letter to 41 Tenant Services Authority staff who walked out of the union after it banned their branch secretary.