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The Week in Housing: government pushes planning to speed up housing delivery, and the ombudsman’s busiest year ever

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The government has delayed leasehold reforms until the new year (picture: Alamy)

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The Week in Housing: government pushes planning to speed up housing delivery, and the ombudsman’s busiest year ever #UKhousing

Good afternoon.

The festive season is truly upon us, and the government ended the week by pushing back both the Warm Homes Plan and leasehold reform to the new year. However, the government did promise more action on so-called “fleecehold” estates. Harry Scoffin, founder of campaign group Free Leaseholders, said: “Leaseholders can take liberation off their Christmas lists.”

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill gained royal assent today, with the government expecting it to accelerate tens of thousands of new homes.

But Westminster has already announced another planning consultation, this time with changes to the National Planning Policy Famework, which it says will make the system clearer and more rules-based. Our chief reporter Eliza Parr broke down the six biggest takeaways from the consultation for housing.

This week we also have an interview with Amy Rees, chief executive of Homes England, which puts some meat on the bones of what to expect from the agency as it also tries to drive more housebuilding, and the new National Housing Bank.

Clarion saw a 37% increase in surplus for the half year, and increased spending on development. But its delivery of new homes is down, as are results from private sales and shared ownership. Orbit recently boosted its development plans, but its results cite “continued upward pressure on costs” and a “challenging macro-economic environment”. And figures from Scotland found that landlords are under financial pressure.

Inside Housing revealed that one major landlord has stopped accepting any non-binding nominations from councils in London for its homes. Notting Hill Genesis cited the need to help its existing tenants move home if they are overcrowded or need to downsize.

Meanwhile, the Housing Ombudsman reported its “busiest year ever”, as its caseworkers completed more than 7,000 investigations. Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway, in the watchdog’s annual report, warned that “landlords have yet to fully grip the challenges of their operating environment”.

Gosport Council was given a C4 consumer rating by the regulator, in part due to “unacceptable” failures on fire and electrical safety. This includes fire safety remedial actions, some overdue since 2012.

Today we published new revelations about the Spectrum fire in east London, and the role that scaffolding played. Attention has swung to this issue after the devastating fire in Hong Kong, which claimed the lives of at least 160 people. Our long read by Peter Apps asks whether the UK should be more worried about scaffolding fires in occupied buildings.

An important case relating to a large panel system (LPS) block in Tower Hamlets also concluded this week. The court of appeal confirmed that leaseholders who bought some of the flats in this block under the Right to Buy cannot be charged for remediation work. Leaseholders had been quoted up to £95,000 per flat for the works, to shore up the structural integrity of the building.

For more background on this, you might be interested in a piece we ran this summer on how the Building Safety Act has renewed pressure to act on dangerous LPS blocks.

And the government has started a consultation on plans for a single regulator for the construction sector, which will cover buildings, products and “professional regulation”.

In Scotland, housing associations have been lobbying for more funding for building safety.

Tributes poured in this week for Simon Robinson, director of neighbourhoods at Great Places, who died suddenly last month, aged 53. Mr Robinson was well known in the sector, having worked his way up from homelessness officer.

A man was convicted over the death of John McLardie, former chair of Govanhill Housing Association. The current chair, Keith Kintrea, said: “John McLardie gave many years of service to both Govanhill Housing Association and the wider community-controlled housing movement in Scotland.”

Meanwhile, more than half of state school teachers in England report that children in their schools are experiencing homelessness, a new survey by Shelter has uncovered. In London the figures are even higher, with 73% saying they work at schools with homeless pupils, and 45% directly teaching or interacting with these children.

And, as this will be our last Week in Housing until 2026, happy holidays.

Jess McCabe, deputy editor, Inside Housing