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From the archive – associations could be priced out of the market
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago
25 years ago
Housing associations risked being “priced out of the market” as rising costs for affordable homes meant they were becoming more expensive than market housing in some areas, a lender warned.
Douglas Smallwood, head of commercial lending at Halifax Building Society, said grant rates of just 55% per unit meant associations were setting rents at levels higher than a standard mortgage or private rent.
In Norwich, for example, an average private rent was £61 per week but housing associations were charging an average of £65.21.
“For the hard-nosed commercial lender, such a prospect has all the hallmarks of the classic overheated market,” Mr Smallwood told Inside Housing.
These fears would prove largely unfounded as an explosion in house prices over the next two decades meant the demand for below-market-value housing has never let up and appetite from lenders has not diminished.
However, arguments about grant rates and appropriate housing association rents have persisted – with grant rates now much lower and rents higher than they were in Mr Smallwood’s day.
15 years ago
Investigations were under way into a fire in a tower block in Stevenage. The fire in the block, Harrow Court, killed two firefighters who were trying to rescue a woman trapped on an upper floor. She also died.
The fire saw 70 people evacuated and led to questions about why the building was not fitted with sprinklers. Stevenage Council said it was “too early” to say whether or not sprinklers would be fitted in other blocks in the area as investigations into the fire were still ongoing.
The fire spread from the 14th floor of the 17-storey building. The firefighters died after being tangled in cables attached to the ceiling after plastic hooks melted. A similar tragedy also resulted in the deaths of two firefighters at Shirley Towers, Southampton, five years later.
Picture: Getty
Five years ago
Circle Housing Group was revealed to have breached the regulator’s Home Standard, exposing tenants to the risk of serious harm as a result of widespread failures to carry out emergency repairs.
A notice published by the Homes and Communities Agency, then responsible for regulation, accused the 70,000-home landlord of “chronic and long-standing difficulties” in its repairs service. It made Circle the first social landlord to breach the ‘serious detriment test’ required for the regulator to get involved in complaints about services. The saga would drag on for years, with the landlord downgraded to a non-compliant governance rating for the failures.
During this process, it merged with Affinity Sutton to form Clarion – now the country’s largest association.
