From the archive - week of 6 February

30 years ago

The government stopped local authorities using leasing schemes with housing associations to get around capital spending controls.

The ban, brought in overnight, was designed to stop partnering schemes such as a £70m deal between Sheffield Council and United Kingdom Housing Trust (UKHT) to build 2,000 homes.

Housing minister John Patten said the rule was an extension of the “right to rent”, with all financial assistance to housing associations now having to be approved by the Department of the Environment.

The government was thought to have been angry at the ease with which councils had got around capital controls and sought to clamp down on them.

But UKHT chair Serge Lowry told Inside Housing the government was taking powers away from local authorities, labelling the move “disgraceful”.

20 years ago

Labour MP Frank Field outlined radical plans to axe rent for social housing tenants in exchange for benefit reforms.

Mr Field, who would later become minister for welfare reform under Tony Blair, suggested tenants would be expected to take any job offer in return for living rent-free in social housing homes.

He said the idea would address failings in the benefits system that created disincentives to work. “The debate needs to begin in this fundamental way if we are to prevent increasing ghettoisation scarring the landscape of this country,” he added.

The comments divided the sector at the Housing Corporation conference.

National Housing Federation chief Jim Coulter said the move could put 4p on income tax, but his counterpart at the Chartered Institute of Housing, Christine Laird, said it was “wonderful” that the idea had been aired. In fleshing out the proposal, Mr Field said housing associations would be compensated for the loss of rental income by having their debts written off.

However, doubts remained over how to raise money to pay for repairs and maintenance of tenants’ homes.

10 years ago

The European Parliament was on the brink of releasing hundreds of billions of pounds of funding for social housing after MEPs and local authorities queried the rules governing a £200bn fund.

If released, the money could enable member states to regenerate housing estates and build new homes. Rules had limited the use of European structural funds – worth more than £200bn over the following six years – to new member states for certain specific non-housing projects.

But Italian MEP Alfonso Andria tabled an amendment calling for funds to be open to all 27 member states.

The MEP argued funding should be opened up because housing need “is a critical factor for Europe as a whole”.