WINDING DOWN for Christmas? Forget it, if yesterday is anything to go by. If 2007 was the year of the review - step forward Hills, Cave and Callcutt - then 2008 looks like more of the same. Housing minister Yvette Cooper yesterday announced reviews of the housing revenue account (HRA) subsidy system and the private rented sector alongside a working group on regulation, new pathfinders on overcrowding and new pilot projects on housing options and bringing together housing and employment advice.

Her speech yesterday covered much of the government's response to Hills and Cave  and the aftermath of the spending review but also signalled five central themes for the future: investment; regulation; housing options and mobility; social mobility; and mixed communtiies.

And if that wasn't enough to be going on with, it came on the day it emerged that Judith Armitt has quit as chief executive of the Thames Gateway - reportedly after clashes with Cooper - that the Housing Corporation called for more larger homes in the investment programme, and the National Housing Federation published a glossy investment manifesto setting out how associations can deliver on new homes (seemingly by the government giving it what it wants on issues such as rent increases, building for outright sale and retention of surpluses).

The review of the HRA system will be carried out jointly by officials from the Treasury and Communities and Local Government, a statement to parliament confirmed. They will look at what's happened in the six pilot areas and will not make a final report until Spring 2009. However, early conclusions will feed into decisions on the housing regulator and rent and subsidy determinations. It was immediately welcomed by the Chartered Institute of Housing.

The review of the private rented sector will be 'independent' and 'comprehensive' with full details being announced next year. This appears to be in the context of increasing housing options for people on the waiting list as opposed to wider issues of regulation.

And an advisory group chaired by Ian Cole of Sheffield University will be charged with the tricky task of working out how to bring council and ALMO housing under Oftenant in line with housing associations. 

The pilots on overcrowding are part of an attempt to address a key issue raised by Hills - the slowdown in the turnover of social tenancies. Ideas include helping people who are under-occupying to move to smaller homes - although the political dangers of being seen to target pensioners can be seen in the Daily Mail this morning - as well using the bedroom standard rather than the outdated statutory overcrowded definition in the pilot areas.

Social mobillity will be addessed in five housing options pilots that will develop better advice not just on housing but (another key Hills theme) training and employment too.

Cooper summed up: 'Our challenge now in terms of policy development is around these themes. How we do more to increase opportunities for those living in social housing, or those who want to live in social housing but can't get in through the door at the moment? On supply - how can we do more to build the family homes as well as the additional units we need? On the institutional structure - how can we rapidly extend to local councils and ALMOs the new regulatory framework? And what should we do to improve the housing revenue account? On housing options and mobility - how can we better cater for the needs of different groups, for families, for older people, and to promote greater choice and mobility within the system? On social mobility - how can this be better promoted through social housing, particularly through helping people into work but also helping them to build up assets? And finally what more can we do to promote mixed incomes and tenures in existing communities as well as in new developments.'

Posted by Jules Birch, Dec 13 

Posted in Cave review, Finance, Hills review, Private renting, Social housing, Thames Gateway

WILL IT become the new Rome and a beacon of sustainable economic growth? Or is it in danger of turning into a public spending calamity and an urban wasteland of badly-designed estates?

Rather like the Olympics, the Thames Gateway could be a triumph - or a disaster - and though it will attract less publicity it has even more riding on it. Not just in economic terms - it is really the only option for an extension to London - but in terms of housing numbers too. The 160,000 homes planned for the region represent more than 5% of the government's 3m target by 2020.

But the delivery plan launched yesterday is about far more than just numbers of jobs and homes. It brings together spending plans on social and transport infrastructure, investment in education and training, a strong emphasis on design quality and - most ambitiously - the development of a new eco region. The gateway will have an eco quarter, retrofitting of existing homes to reduce emissions and a new park and an expectation that development will be water as well as carbon neutral and that construction will generate zero waste. All this in an area threatened by flooding and higher sea levels.

Put like that, ambitious is an understatement and the consequences of adding ever more targets without enough investment to back them up are obvious. Yet equally well the region needs a vision and visions need to aim high and inspire. Aiming low and compromising carries risks of its own - just ask anyone involved in the Dome. 

Lurking in the background is that strongly worded report from the public accounts committee warning that Communities and Local Government is 'manifestly not up to the job' of managing the project. For the CLG the report was 'hopelessly out of date'.

The really scary thing is that there is no real way to know who is correct - until it's too late.

Posted by Jules Birch, Nov 30 

Posted in Thames Gateway

THE STANDARD of political debate about housing can be depressingly low so it was good to see two MPs buck the trend in the debate on the Queen's Speech yesterday.

Which was just as well, given the almost total lack of input from the Conservative front bench. Opposition leader David Cameron criticised Gordon Brown's legislative programme for pinching his ideas and for lack of vision: 'Whether it is on housing, immigration or youth unemployment, it is all short-term tricks instead of long-term problem solving.' The only problem was that the only solution he is offering - 'cutting stamp duty to help people on to the housing ladder' - looks archetypally short term. Even the biggest beneficiary of the plan, a buyer of a £250,000 home would only gain £1,250 - and that would be wiped out by a 0.5% rise in house prices.

So it was refreshing to hear the contributions of a Labour member of the awkward squad criticising the Thames Gateway for producing more junkets than new homes and a Tory grandee who said he was "gagging" for more new homes in his constituency.

Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock, said he had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Gateway at the last election.  'However, after some years, I have to tell the government that there is very little to show for the legislation and policy that they put forward,' he said. 'I am justifiably very irritated. I am irritated because a plethora of ministers have had some responsibility for this. We have seen numerous quangos with "Thames Gateway" or similar terms in their title. Every week I am invited to what I can refer to only as "junkets"—though they are also called receptions and dinners—by people who claim to be involved in part of the regeneration. I spurn them—there are far too many junkets and receptions in this place anyway—but I am also concerned that such people seem to see receptions, dinners, exhibitions and conferences as a substitute for bricks and mortar. It is not good enough.'

The culprit? Communities and Local Government. 'Ministers have all these buzz words—gateways, stepping-stones, blue-skies policies and so on—and one of them is joined-up government. Their performance in this area is the opposite of joined-up government,' he said. The specific problem? One part of the CLG was pushing regneration while the part responsible for approving the spatial strategy was holding it back.

The Tory grandee was David Maclean, MP for Penrith & The Border, but it was John Prescott that he had in his sights. 'We have been gagging for housing in Carlisle, in Penrith, and in the Eden area in Cumbria for the past five, six, seven or eight years,' he said. 'We are constrained by the policy invented by the previous deputy leader of the Labour party, who decided that no new houses should be built in Cumbria until the north-west region had disposed of the 10,000 surplus houses which, apparently, are to be found in Manchester and Liverpool.'

The impact on his constituency had been profound. 'In Penrith, in the Eden valley, we are allowed 100 homes per annum. I have been told that that may be increased to 200, and we may even be allowed 300 per annum in future. That is nonsense: I do not know how many we need, the planners do not know and the councillors do not know. It is probably 400 or 500 per annum, but the market should decide.'

His solution may raise some problems - not least members of his own party sharing his enthusiasm for more homes - but at least it would last for longer than a few weeks of house price rises. 'We can cut through the problems that the government have created in housing by letting councils in my area decide housing applications for themselves,' he said. 'We should let them build what they need in the right style and design, and in the right place. They know best—I do not. They are the councillors and planners, so they should do it.'

Posted by Jules Birch, Nov 7 

Posted in Politics , Housebuilding, Thames Gateway