From the archive: rocketing rents and solar deals

1993 (this cover)

Sky rocketing rents for housing association tenants made front page news this week in 1993, after the National Federation of Housing Associations revealed a 20.8% average rise.

This meant rents increased at more than 11 times the rate of inflation – which was 1.8% back then. Rents were also rising much faster than average incomes of tenants, which grew 5.8% that year.

This meant average rents were £43.06 a week. New assured tenants were paying £50.41 a week.

The federation called the increases “startling”, and put them down to John Major’s Conservative government reducing grant rates for building new social homes. “It is poor tenants particularly who are being hit by these policies,” said Charlie Legg, head of the federation’s housing services and research department.

2003

12 housing association homes were going to be demolished in Hampshire - after they had been built on land known to be prone to flooding.

The homes had been empty for three years due to flooding, after being approved by East Hampshire Council in the mid-’90s to the consternation of local residents who had warned that the land was prone to flooding.

The council’s head of planning control, Ian Ellis, said there had been insufficient evidence of the flooding at the time as stories from villagers were only “anecdotal”. He pointed out that changes to planning rules should make similar mess-ups less likely as flood risk assessments would be needed even if there was only a suspected risk of flooding.

The New Downland Housing Association homes were to be demolished and replaced with 16 homes on an adjacent site - although only four would be affordable.

2013

The government has recently announced the end of subsidies for solar panels, but five years ago landlords were still embracing the technology.

First Wessex was investing £4.3m to install photovoltaic panels on 800 of its homes, Inside Housing reported, cutting tenants’ electricity bills by £75 to £150 a year.

It was a significant deal as the first after the then coalition government had slashed generous subsidies for rooftop solar panels, from 43.3p per kilowatt hour to 21p. First Wessex predicted the investment would pay off within eight years, leaving another eight years of subsidy, generating a return of 9.3%.

Paul Ciniglio, sustainability and asset strategist at First Wessex said: “Despite no longer being such a lucrative proposition it still stacks up.”