MOVING his tanks on to Labour's lawn? Slapping his towel down on Gordon Brown's sunbed? However you describe it, the launch of the new Homelessness Foundation looks to be at the heart of David Cameron's bid to shake off the Conservatives' image as the 'nasty' party. 

'I'm proud because it's the Conservative Party that is taking the lead in the fight against homelessness,' he said in his speech at the launch event. 'That is saying we can build a fairer society and make a difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in our country.

That's quite a turnaround for a party that gained a reputation in the 1990s for regarding the homeless as something you stepped over on your way to the opera [even though it was a quote taken out of context] and for dismantling the homelessness legislation.

Change one word in Cameron's speech and he would get a standing ovation at the Labour conference: 'I've put tackling poverty at the heart of my mission for the Conservative Party: 'It's just frankly unacceptable that in a society such as ours - one of the richest and most developed in the world - that some people live in truly dire and degrading poverty. I want to give everyone - no matter what their background or their circumstances - the chance to lift themselves up and make the most of their lives. And an important part of that means tackling homelessness - giving everyone the security that a roof over their head brings.'

He attacked the government for fiddling the figures on rough sleeping, ignoring hidden homelessness and failing to do enough about families in temporary and overcrowded accommodation and argued that action had to be taken on the causes as well as the symptoms of homelesness.

Tories often seem to make the right noises about homelessness only to veer off into moralising about marriage and the family. Family breakdown was there in Cameron's speech yesterday but alongside personal debt, prison rehabilitation and recognition of a fourth cause of homelessness that could be the most important for the future. 'And causes like the severe lack of affordable housing in our country. Taken year on year, there's actually been less social housing built in the last decade than in the two decades before.'

It's not exactly a cast-iron commitment to increase, or even maintain, current levels of spending on affordable housing but it is an important marker and a positive sign for a post-Labour world.

Which is why charities like Shelter and Crisis are surely right to welcome the new initiative and keep up the pressure to ensure that actions follow words.

As Inside Housing reports this week, a Tory housing green paper is due in October. David Cameron could do worse than listen to the Local Government Association and its (Conservative) chairman Sir Simon Milton. The LGA is warning of a 1m increase in waiting lists by 2010 and calling for more freedom for councils to borrow and remortgage assets to reinvest.

Why not go further than the government's plans on freedom from the housing revenue account? 'Tories back council housing' might just have the potential to be the Cameroon equivalent of New Labour scrapping Clause Four.

Posted by Jules Birch, May 16

Posted in Homelessness, Politics

THE most frightening thing about this morning's figures confirming that housing starts fell by a quarter in the first three months of the year is that things have got even worse since then. All the gloomy financial statements and warnings about falling sales and rising cancellation rates have come from housebuilders in the last six weeks - after it became clear that there would be no Spring recovery in the market.

The CLG housebuilding statistics recorded 32,100 starts in England in the first three months of the year, down 21% on the previous three months and 24% on the same period a year ago. Completions, which lag starts for obvious reasons, were down 18% on the March quarter of 2007.

The figures are even worse for housebuilders when you take into account that starts by registered social landlords rose 6% over the same period. Private sector starts were down 28% in England as a whole.

And individual regions saw much bigger falls in total starts: 30% in the North West, 32% in London, 41% in Yorkshire & Humberside.

No wonder housebuilders are panicking and warning of redundancies. These are appalling figures when you consider that Britain's biggest housebuilder, Persimmon, stopped work on new sites completely last month and that, thanks to reliance on section 106, a slump in the private sector will drag the social sector down with it.

It goes without saying that the government's 240,000 homes a year target is looking further away than ever. Starts peaked at 184,900 in 2005/06 but have been falling ever since. 

True, the 240,000 target is for net additions (completions plus conversions minus demolitions). The CLG statisticians say net additions are expected to remain constant at just under 200,000 for 2007/08 - but that is bound to fall as plummeting starts feed into completions. 

Posted by Jules Birch, May 15 

Posted in Housebuilding

SO the rumours about a new housing market package were true. The details announced in today's draft Queen's Speech are still sketchy but it is clear that it will be on nothing like the same scale as its predecessor in 1992 - £200m not £577m to buy homes that will probably cost three times as much now means it's probably worth just 10% of that in real terms.

However, the same logic applies of acquiring homes for the social sector at the same time as preventing worse problems in the private sector. After Caroline Flint unwittingly revealed yesterday the government's view that house prices will fall by 5-10% this year and 'we can't know how bad it will get', action was clearly needed.

In fairness to her, it was actually a pretty sensible assessment of the state of the housing market - unless, of course, you're the housing minister on the way into a cabinet meeting.

The scenario painted in the snatched picture of her briefing notes (if you missed it, go here) would actually be pretty good news for the first-time buyers but the government cannot afford to contemplate the prospect of things getting any worse. 

One temptation must have been to steal an idea from Tory policy advisor Kirstie Allsopp and scrap stamp-duty for first-time buyers. But quite apart from the fact that yesterday's tax cut must have cleaned out the coffers, that sounds like a fruitless way of spending government money if prices are going to fall and help first-timers out more without it costing you a penny.

But there are some other policies in the draft speech [PDF here] that also appear to come from the blue end of the wardrobe. The original housing market package was of course also a Conservative idea and making all first-time buyers eligible for shared ownership schemes subject to an income limit comes bears some distinct similarities with Boris Johnson's programme for London. 

A statement from the CLG says all first-time buyers with a household income of under £60,000 would be eligible for Homebuy. Johnson's plan helps all basic rate taxpayers.

The details will be what matter. Where will the money come from (Gordon Brown suggested it would be reallocated)? What safeguards will prevent expanded equity becoming a route to negative equity for its customers? And how will this market package avoid some of the mistakes made last time?

On the last point in particular it could do worse than ask Anthony Mayer. Appointed yesterday as head of Oftenant, he was chief executive of the Housing Corporation at the time of the last package.

Elsewhere in the speech are plans to extend Oftenant to local authority tenants, a proposed housing reform green paper 'towards the end of 2008' setting out options to 'encourage people towards greater economic independence and social mobility', yet another review of housing benefit and reform of banking regulation.

Posted by Jules Birch, May 14 

Posted in Housing market, Politics , Social housing, Welfare, Tenants

IT'S always seemed churlish to criticise anything as ambitious as the government's target that all new homes should be zero carbon by 2016. Yet it's been almost as hard not to snipe from the sidelines about the way that the Treasury's definition of 'zero carbon' for tax purposes was all but impossible for developers to achieve for practical ones - just ten homes approved for exemption from stamp duty in the first eight months tells its own story.

So yesterday's sensible report from the zero carbon task group of the UK Green Building Council is definitely to be welcomed. It argues that the Treasury definition, which excludes off-site renewables, is not achievable by 80% of new homes and proposes instead: strict minimum energy efficiency standards on building design and appliances supplied by the developer; all new buildings would be required to  mitigate carbon emissions on or near the development - where this is not possible, a minimum level of carbon mitigation must be met.

Above that, off-site renewables would be allowed, without requiring private wire networks, provided they can be shown to be additional and have been built specifically to meet the needs of the development. Or the developer would be able to pay into a community energy fund that would ensure equal or greater net carbon savings but with a price set higher than that of community-based solutions.

Coming from the UK Green Building Council, the defintion has the support of both developers and environmentalists. Some work may still be required to allay Treasury concerns about tax evasion and about whether renewables really are additional, but it seems like a good start.

However, it is still just a start in terms of the broader issue of reducing carbon emissions from housing. It still takes no account of embodied energy - emissions from making the materials used to build the homes - or our tendency to fill our new homes with energy hogs like plasma TVs - or the fact that Britain's privatised electricity supply industry seems to have little interest in real community-based solutions like district heating. And that's before you even begin to consider the thorny issue of what to do about existing homes.

Posted by Jules Birch, May 13 

Posted in Environment, Housebuilding

IF the government is to succeed in driving through plans for three million new homes in England by 2020, there are few more vital battlegrounds than the East of England. Under a revised regional spatial strategy published today, one in six of them will be in the region: a total of 508,000 by 2021 - a 30,000 increase on previous plans.

The region certainly has land for new homes but the problem is that much of it is protected green belt land around existing settlements like Harlow and Stevenage. The government claims that the plan will actually result in a net increase of green belt.

However, that argument is unlikely to convince environmentalists. A report by the CPRE last week claimed that 1,100 ha of green belt has been lost to 45,000 homes since 1997 and its analysis started with a detailed run-down of the threat posed by development plans in Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

The strategy itself is a closely argued case for sustainable development which sets a 35% minimum affordable housing target for new developments and addresses the key regional issue of water management as well as employment and transport.

East of England minister Barbara Follett was clear about the benefits in a speech at the launch event in Letchworth. 'The regional spatial strategy is a key milestone for delivering sustainable housing growth and tackling problems of homelessness, housing affordability and climate change here in the East of England,' she said. 'The plan went through a rigorous consultation where all views were heard. It is vital for all communities that the regional assembly, local planning authorities and developers continue to support the plan and work to quickly and effectively implement its delivery.'

But the problem for the government - and her personally - is political. Her Stevenage constituency (majority 3,139) is highly vulnerable to any Conservative exploitation of the plan - as are those of 12 other Labour MPs with majorities ranging from 6,500 to a mere 97. 

Posted by Jules Birch, May 12

Posted in Planning