The Week in Housing: a spring in the statement?

On Monday, Ms Reeves pledged £600m to tackle Britain’s construction skills shortage. 

Meanwhile, deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner delayed the start of the Building Safety Levy on new homes by a year so as not to disrupt housebuilding.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook confirmed that £20m will be pumped into a fund to help community groups build more affordable homes.

The Spring Statement kicked off on Wednesday. It emerged that more than three million people will be affected by the welfare cuts previously announced by the chancellor. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has forecasted the cuts will save the government £3.4bn, down from the £5bn it initially expected. 

The OBR also estimated that the government’s planning reforms could result in annual housebuilding hitting a 40-year high of 305,000 homes, although several factors could knock that estimate. 

Our round-up of what the sector thought of the Spring Statement includes praise for the extra £2bn for affordable and social homes, scepticism about whether the funding for skills will go far enough, and concern over the welfare cuts. 

Ahead of the statement, Inside Housing spoke to the chief executive of homelessness charity St Martin-in-the-Fields about the impact the welfare cuts could have. Duncan Shrubsole said tightening eligibility for Personal Independence Payments could cause “massive issues” for housing and housing benefit “which haven’t necessarily been clocked”.

Also this week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Ending Homelessness said it will write to the health secretary, calling for homelessness to be included in the 10-year plan for the NHS.

The call came after the APPG hosted a roundtable on implementing a cross-government strategy for ending homelessness. During the meeting, umbrella organisation Homeless Link said the government had little understanding of the cost of homelessness across different departments, such as health and education.

Homeless Link is calling for a systemic review of homelessness funding as part of the Reset Homelessness campaign, which it is running in partnership with Inside Housing.

As part of the campaign, we reported from the Rough Sleeping Conference in London, organised by Homeless Link. There, we sat down with Emma Haddad, chief executive of charity St Mungo’s, to talk through the government’s actions so far and what the homelessness sector needs.

Inside Housing spoke to a leaseholder fearing a £50,000 cladding bill as his building does not fall under protections in the Defective Premises Act.

The government has intervened in a legal battle over an £18m cladding bill that hit the owner of London’s Olympic Park last year.

In one of several regulatory judgements this week, it emerged that Rochdale Boroughwide Housing regained a compliant governance status after more than two years of engaging with the English regulator over issues related to the death of Awaab Ishak.

Alongside that, five landlords received a C1 grade under the consumer standards from the Regulator of Social Housing. 

Newly formed Bromford Flagship announced it has raised £75m from investors to fund its ambitions to build 2,000 homes a year. This is the housing association’s first private placement post-merger.

Notting Hill Genesis issued a £250m sustainable bond to support investment in existing homes and its plans to build 3,000 homes over the next five years.

Inside Housing published a series of pieces on the new Procurement Act, which came into force on 24 February, including four things we learned about the act, what the new transparency rules mean, a look at what housing sector professionals think about the main changes and how they will affect social landlords, and the chance to gain CPD minutes by learning about the role of the procurement watchdog.

Elsewhere, it emerged that Places for People is in talks to take on a non-compliant Yorkshire landlord as a subsidiary, while a housing association set up by the Church of England has completed its registration with the regulator.

Riverside announced it is set to invest around £72m in more than 3,000 homes to deliver energy efficiency upgrades.

The head of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) called on “all political parties” to engage with its annual housing review as the government prepares a new housing strategy.

In Northern Ireland, the government launched a consultation into whether developer contributions can partly pay for wastewater infrastructure, as it looks to plug an estimated £800m funding gap.

It came after Inside Housing spoke to social landlords about the significant impact the lack of wastewater infrastructure is having on housebuilding. 

CIH Northern Ireland appointed four new board members, while one of the largest landlords in the region created a mobile app to improve its asset management and repairs service.

The region’s planning statistics also came out, which CIH Northern Ireland said highlighted a “concerning downward trend”. 

In Scotland, a sector body called the government’s launch of a £10m fund for owner-occupiers whose homes have unsafe cladding “fundamentally wrong”, as it leaves social housing tenants without a clear path for remediation.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations said that the plans showed that housing associations and their tenants are not being treated in the same way as owner-occupiers.

In Wales, charities called for a temporary ban on social landlords selling off stock, citing concerns about supply. 

Have a great weekend.

Grainne Cuffe, deputy news editor, Inside Housing

Say hello: grainne.cuffe@oceanmedia.co.uk

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