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From the archive: councils call for shared ownership staircasing ban

Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago

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30 years ago this week – councils call for ban on staircasing to preserve low-cost housing #ukhousing

20 years ago this week – BME tenants found to be allocated worst quality social housing #ukhousing

10 years ago this week – credit crunch blights a development in Cambridge #ukhousing

30 years ago

Thirty years ago, councils were calling for staircasing in shared ownership to be banned in rural areas, and possibly nationwide.

The Association of District Councils (ADC) instead called for a model of ‘fixed’ equity housing to ensure that the benefits of low-cost homeownership weren’t lost when residents bought the full share of their home and sold it on the open market.

This was seen as a particular problem in expensive countryside areas, where the sale of shared ownership homes caused a further decline in low-cost housing options for rural people. The ADC report said that such a reform would “benefit successive generations of local people”.

20 years ago

Tenants from ethnic minorities tended to be allocated the worst quality social housing in the least desirable areas, researchers from Shelter found.

A report that looked at 75,000 people the charity had worked with also found that ethnic minorities represented 12% of its clients.

The report found bias even in the owner-occupier sector – the worst condition owned homes represented 7% of the sector, but 35% of that stock was owned by black and Asian people.

Louise Casey, then-deputy director of Shelter, said: “The odds are still heavily stacked against people from minority ethnic groups.”

The credit crunch meant building work coming to a halt on some sites (Picture: Getty)

10 years ago

This week in 1998, the effects of the credit crunch continued to consume Inside Housing. The magazine ran a story on Arbury Park – an estate in Cambridge where Places for People and Bedford Pilgrims Housing Association were finishing 300 social homes, but the surrounding private developments had been abandoned.

Wayne Campbell, principal planning officer at South Cambridgeshire Council, said: “We are aware work has come to a grinding halt on some sites. The social housing schemes will be completing, it is the private ones which have come to a stop. It’s very quiet on site.”

As well as the 300 social homes, another 600 private ones had been planned. Rebecca Mason, a mother of four living there in a private rented flat, said she told friends the estate was “twinned with Beirut”.

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