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Dispatches from Housing 2026: day two
A daily round-up of the most important headlines from day two of the Housing 2026 conference. Photography by Guzelian
A daily round-up of the most important headlines from day two of the Housing 2026 conference #UKhousingA thrilling first day at Housing 2026 was packed with sessions with clear themes of partnership working, as well as resident-led approaches to building safety and housing management, and looked at the different priorities between landlords in London and those in the North.
On day two, Inside Housing took some time out to walk around the conference hall and speak to people at some of the stands about what they had on offer.
CEF was enticing delegates to its stand with a retro Pac-Man arcade game, and Johnstone’s Trade had a miniature pool table.
There was some anger being taken out on a punchbag, a Scalextric track at Chadwick Laurence, a putting range and the chance to win a Lord of the Rings Lego set at Totalmobile.
But away from the novelty sales tactics, sector professionals were discussing misinformation, transparency, and the correct level of affordable housing targets.
The Unlock Net Zero Awards 2026 winners were also announced.
Here is our round-up of what was discussed on Wednesday.
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Misinformation and the importance of finding a home
“True North, you North, You heart of our nation, And our children grow wings and soar across this earth, But home they are assured is the greatest place on earth.”
Poet Lemn Sissay opened his session with a video of his ‘Anthem of the North’, which has in recent weeks been used for Andy Burnham’s MP campaign.
Makerfield born, Mr Sissay has been an advocate for the Labour leader candidate and is loudly proud of their relationship.
It was an emotional session as Mr Sissay shared his powerful, heartbreaking story of being taken away from his mother after birth, and growing up in the care system.
“The thing I learned through being in care was that everybody disappears all the time,” he said.
He added a brief aside: “By the way, I’m fine. I’m telling this story because it ends with a house and a home.”
Mr Sissay gave thanks to Graham Wilson, the housing officer who “saved” him by advocating for him to get a council tenancy at age 17, and called for housing officers to “look out at the outer reaches of your job descriptions, where you can do the things that he did, which are memorable, and which make you feel like you belong in the work that you’re in.”
Whether related to the care or the immigration system, there have been a number of terrible ideas from outside the sector of late, including plans that a Reform government would ban foreign nationals from being allocated social housing, which Shelter branded as “racist and morally wrong”.
At Housing 2026, we heard a thoughtful discussion between Ulfat Hussain, chief executive of Arawak Walton Housing Association, and Anna Bishop, chief executive of South Liverpool Homes (SLH), who both joined Inside Housing’s features editor Katharine Swindells to talk about misinformation in social housing allocations and immigration.
Research by Inside Housing earlier this year found that two-thirds of social housing staff have – in real life – encountered factually inaccurate information along the lines of “all social housing is going to immigrants”.
It also found that four in 10 minority ethnic staff had felt discrimination, prejudice or negative sentiment from residents/clients because of their ethnicity, race, immigrant background or religion in the past 12 months.
“We’ve left a vacuum,” said Ms Bishop, as she shared more information on how SLH had run a campaign to counter misinformation and racism.
“We have left this empty space by not explaining to people what we do and how we let homes, and have allowed people to fill that space and take capital.”
Meanwhile, Mr Hussain called for bolder action from the sector.
“It’s an issue which goes into the hard-to-do area, but the housing sector is used to doing hard-to-do things all the time. We always do it. We always rise up to every single challenge,” he said.
“If misinformation divides communities, leadership can and must unite them. Anti-racist leadership is not the easiest path, but it is the right one, and in this moment it is the necessary one.”
Parties disagree on affordable housing targets
At a panel discussion, leaders from across the political spectrum were unable to reach a consensus on the appropriate level of affordable housing that new developments ought to provide.
The political breakfast hosted by Sovereign Network Group on Wednesday took place the same day as three London councils filed a High Court claim against plans by mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to lower the affordable housing target for new London developments from 35% to 20%.
When asked by Inside Housing what the correct level of affordable housing on new schemes should be, the panel provided mixed answers.
This cut was confirmed earlier this year as part of the mayor’s emergency package to kick-start housebuilding in the capital, which also included temporary relief for developers from the Community Infrastructure Levy.
Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Lewisham councils are claimants under the judicial review claim, which is backed by seven other councils.
Both Hackney and Lewisham are now led by Green Party mayors following the local elections last month, and the legal challenge has been backed by the party’s leader Zack Polanski.
More resident transparency
The deputy chief executive of the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) called on landlords to be transparent with residents about the financial pressures they are under.
The discussion was focused on resident-led change in social housing. Kate Dodsworth was responding to a question on how far social landlords still have to go in terms of transparency in the new regulatory environment.
She said that when the RSH started its new proactive consumer regulation regime, some landlords were “clearly” starting from a position “way behind others”.
This warning came as the RSH published its latest round of judgements, in which four housing associations were handed the top consumer grades, while two were upgraded from non-compliant.
Croydon Churches Housing Association, Livv Housing Group, Prima Housing Group and Two Rivers Housing all received a C1 for their first consumer grade following inspections.
Nottingham City Council was upgraded from C3 to a compliant C2, while London-based East End Homes was upgraded from G3 to G2.
Is there really a North/South divide?
Wednesday morning began with a fireside chat (thankfully not a real fire, given the weather) between Alex Notay, chief executive of The Housing Forum, and Darren Rodwell, former leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, as he promotes his new book.
“God, you’re really going to get me into trouble now. I’m trying to be back one day in the Labour Party again, but I ain’t going to be any time soon with all these questions,” Mr Rodwell said when asked about Mr Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’.
“But first of all, let’s debunk the North vs the South. Actually, there’s the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’,” he said.
“Let’s not allow the politicians to divide us based on geographical differences, right? Because actually, this is all about sharing wealth in a way that is fitting for the communities that live amongst those areas.”
“My biggest worry about devolution right now is, we’re taking politics upwards and away from communities, and that will only cause division,” he said.
“My biggest worry about devolution right now is, we’re taking politics upwards and away from communities, and that will only cause division”
While he acknowledged that many issues benefit from a combined approach, he said it shouldn’t come at the expense of local authority powers.
“We’ve got to be very careful about what we’re trying to do. Don’t cripple democracy and take it away from the very people that need it the most.”
The former politician reflected on his own experience campaigning against the British National Party in east London, as he spoke about the growth of Reform.
“I think we’ve got to be very careful about putting people in boxes just because we have our own version of events,” he said. “So what I’d be saying is, flipping it the other way, and saying why are people feeling the need to go outside of what has been mainstream politics in this country.”
And he didn’t mince words as he said that politicians are “great actors” who don’t speak from the heart.
“Lots of people are very jealous about what I’ve done, and ultimately that’s what did me in in politics, and that’s fine, I accept that,” he said.
Ending veteran homelessness
There was an important session on ending veteran homelessness through trauma-informed housing, mental health support and employment.
Julie Lowe, policy officer for families, homes and communities at the Royal British Legion, stressed the importance of all services involved in housing stability – not just the housing sector, but also justice and health – identifying veterans in need of support because there are severe limitations with data collection.
“What we do know is that when veterans are faced with homelessness, their needs can be quite complex, [with] needs in multiple areas that require support,” she said.
Ms Lowe spoke about the Armed Forces Covenant, launched in 2011 through the Armed Forces Act. Its principles are that those who served and who are serving, and their families, should face no disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services.
Legally, all statutory organisations involved in the local provision of housing, health and education must pay due regard to the principles of the covenant.
But last year the government promised to extend this to include all central government departments. This means the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will have to pay due regard to the principles when implementing new policies. That bill is going through parliament.
“It’s a really important step forward. However, legislation can really only go so far, so there’s still a huge amount of work to do to raise awareness, not just in this sector, but in other sectors too, about the needs of the armed forces community,” Ms Lowe said.
“The reality is mainstream services, especially homelessness services, are just as able to work with a veteran as they are with anyone else”
Lee Buss-Blair, director of operations at Riverside and a veteran, said that those who have served in the armed forced can often exclude themselves from mainstream services.
“We sometimes fall into the belief that if you’re not a veteran, if you’ve not done what I’ve done, if you’ve not seen what I’ve seen, you won’t be able to understand me, and therefore you couldn’t possibly help me,” he said.
Mr Buss-Blair added that it often takes reaching an absolute crisis point before veterans reach out for help.
“The reality is mainstream services, especially homelessness services, are just as able to work with a veteran as they are with anyone else,” he said, with the golden thread among all people who experience homelessness being “trauma and the impact of trauma”.
“And the reality is the effective ways of working with that trauma are the same, irrespective of the source of that trauma,” he added.
Mr Buss-Blair said veterans’ supported housing is often spread out across the country and veterans can have to travel long distances to get exactly what they need, often far from family and friends.
He said there are ways mainstream organisations can send a message to veterans that they are safe with them, such as signing the Armed Forces Covenant.
“Just to be clear, the covenant is about overcoming disadvantage. It’s not about giving veterans a leg up. We don’t deserve special treatment just because we’ve served. We do deserve to make sure that we’re not disadvantaged as a result of our service.”
Remediation
The conference also heard an update on how efforts to remediate cladding are going at some of London’s biggest landlords. Delegates at the building safety stage heard that Clarion has surveyed more than half of its 8,500 blocks of flats, though of these only 600 are above 11 metres tall.
Dan Hollis, director of building safety at Clarion, stressed that safety defects often go beyond issues with external cladding.
He said: “What we’re finding is that if the external wall system is built poorly, then other aspects of the building are built poorly, too.”
These problems include issues with timber and lightweight steel frames, gas installation, damp and compartmentation.
“One of the things I suppose I’m most concerned about is rot in timber-frame buildings of four storeys and higher,” he added.
Mr Hollis said despite there not being a pot of money set aside to fix these issues, they are “significant and important problems”, and stressed the importance of working with good designers and contractors to make sure all issues are understood.
Long-term certainty needed
In a panel session looking at delivering new homes in challenging market conditions, Shahi Islam, director of affordable housing at Homes England, was asked for his “magic wand wish”.
Mr Islam said he wants to see continued “programme certainty”, to give providers confidence and resilience.
“I think if we change the parameters overnight, we’ve seen what happens to the sector. So my ask would be that we stick to the parameters as we’ve gone out to the sector, at least for a long period of time.”
While Mr Islam did not directly reference the imminent change in prime minister – or frontrunner Mr Burnham’s hints at a further shift to social rent – it’s clear that Homes England is thinking about the future of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme under a new leader.
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