The Week in Housing: development viability rollercoaster, Building Safety Regulator progress and build-up to homelessness strategy

This week, Inside Housing’s exclusive data revealed a 10.7% increase in the number of homes completed by councils across England, Wales and Scotland.

And we have a major profile of Shahi Islam, director of affordable housing at Homes England, with the inside track on how the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme will work.

Homes England has signed a key agreement with Clare Ward, the mayor of the East Midlands, that is expected to boost the number of homes built in the region by 100,000.

We got an insight from Home Group, which reported a drop in completions – but still expects to hit its target of 1,000 homes this year.

However, the debate about what more is needed to stimulate housebuilding continues. Paul Hackett, the chief executive of Southern Housing, wrote for us about some of the ideas that are starting to be floated. This includes a shift to using tax credits to subsidise affordable housing, which means foregoing tax revenue on a development, rather than giving grant upfront.

On the fire safety front, we broke down the seven biggest takeaways from new guidance out this Tuesday on residential PEEPs, the personal evacuation plans for disabled residents of high rises. We get into what the guidance means for responsible persons. Some of the details look likely to be controversial with disabled people’s campaign groups and charities, in part because it opens the possibility that residents may need to pay for some measures.

The fire safety remediation saga at the former Olympic Village entered a new stage, with Get Living, which owns the freeholds of 2,800 properties on the site in Stratford, launching a new law suit over the £432m bill to fix defects across 63 buildings.

The government’s homelessness strategy is eagerly awaited (date now expected: either before or after Christmas). In the run-up, 40 MPs signed a letter to Steve Reed, the housing secretary, calling for Housing First to be rolled out nationwide.

In Wales, the homelessness sector reacted with dismay to the Welsh government’s proposal to increase funding by just 2%. A new report is calling for an uplift of 10% instead, and warns that the government’s proposal risks a cut in capacity and a recruitment freeze.

In London, the mayor launched a £3.5m ‘accelerator’ programme designed to test innovative approaches to ending homelessness. There’s a clear need for any innovations this programme can devise: London Councils estimates that one in 50 Londoners is homeless, while rough sleeping is up 10% on last year.

One council is aiming to convert schools which closed because of a decline in enrolment into temporary accommodation.

Bromford Flagship has secured £150m in sustainability-linked finance. The housing association said the loans will be used to build energy-efficient homes and invest in existing stock, but the key performance indicators are still being negotiated.

The Scottish government has launched a new portal to link the owners of empty homes with possible developers, rolling out a pilot that has already been trialled in a handful of areas.

And Anchor’s results came out, showing that while turnover is up, its operating margins narrowed, in part because the housing association is holding unsold properties.

Northern Ireland announced the first review into the Decent Homes Standard since it was introduced two decades ago. The proposals for the minimum standard for social housing include a wealth of detail for the sector to get to grips with, including a new distinction between “mandatory” and “desirable” parts of the standard.

Finally, Camden Council has now agreed plans to demolish and rebuild three blocks on a site that was deemed “virtually uninhabitable” due to works on the planned HS2 Euston terminal, which has now been paused.

Have a great weekend.

Jess McCabe, deputy editor, Inside Housing

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