Questions raised over council-led building
Questions have been raised about councils’ readiness to build homes after Gordon Brown announced he would ‘put aside anything that stands in their way’.
Local authorities have complained inflexible subsidy rules prevent them from retaining rental income from their homes to invest in new stock. The current system, coupled with tight borrowing rules, has seen council house building rates plummeting to just 310 in 2007/08, from nearly 75,000 in 1979.
But some question whether the government’s pledge to hand councils more financial freedoms to build will be matched by the drive and capacity within town halls.
Daniel Zeichner, a member of Labour’s sustainable communities policy commission, said he was concerned about the over-cautiousness shown by councils in finding ways around the current obstacles.
‘My worry is that I’m not convinced that a lot of councils will respond,’ he said. ‘And that then begs further questions about what the government does next. The ball is in councils’ courts now.’
Chris Leslie, director of the New Local Government Network, said building again would present a challenge to councils, because their [building] ‘machinery has been made dormant’ after so many years of inactivity.
A spokesman for the Local Government Association said he expected a ‘significant number’ of English local authorities to take up new freedoms to build, as they collectively spent around £250 million a year on maintaining waiting lists and providing temporary housing.
He said: ‘Councils want to do everything they can to get people off waiting lists and get them into a stable environment where they’re paying rent.
‘It’s absolutely in councils’ financial interests to make sure that there’s enough housing stock in their area.’
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Readers' comments (5)
Alan Savage | 03/02/2009 10:49 am
Perhaps Gordon Brown forgot that the councils he tasked with building new homes take around six months to fix a leaky gutter. Doesn’t look good on the CV.
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Steve McCann | 03/02/2009 12:16 pm
Enough said, Alan.
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Andrew Fiske | 03/02/2009 1:42 pm
I thought the juxtaposition of the PFI article was interesting and shows the extent LA's have gone to find ways to build again as is the case with Local Housing Companies - not having to pay enormous amounts to consultants would help to pay for the technical advice to get new homes built. Are we moving into an exciting new model of locally built housing, clear local accountability, strong tenant and democractic involvement, local housing management - or is this what we used to call Council Housing?
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Mark | 04/02/2009 12:23 pm
Nonsense. The biggest obstacle to council build is Labour dogmatism. No debt write off if you retain your stock, but LSVT into an RSL and magigally it all goes away. Write the debt off and reform the nonsense that is the HRA; those are the two biggest obstacles. Unless and until Brown delivers on these two issues he is frankly all bluster and words, no action (not for the first or last time).
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Alan Rickman | 04/02/2009 5:31 pm
So much depends on the Housing Revenue Account Review, Councils have been short changed for so long, that they need positive action by the government, to allow them to keep the money tenants pay in rent for use on their own council homes. For so many years they have been robbed they have no money to spare,Winchester is facing cut backs in services, yet like other councils still has to send over £8m to the government in negative subsidy.Its not on. Give us equal rights with Housing Associations and let us keep our rent money.Then we might be able to build council homes again. The best affordable homes you can get.
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