The Week in Housing: homelessness strategy revealed alongside Homes England’s five-year delivery target

The sector said it was a step in the right direction, though significant gaps remain. Inside Housing has five key takeaways here.

It came just after a Crisis briefing which found that nearly one-third of housing associations think pre-tenancy checks can reveal that unsuitable housing is being offered to applicants.

Homes England set out its strategic plan for the next five years, with analysis suggesting that the agency will support the delivery of 280,000 new homes.

In line with a more devolved model, new mayors in six areas of England will be able to pay for housebuilding from a share of nearly £200m per year, but the full funding will be delayed alongside plans to push back elections.

New towns are a big part of the government’s ambition, but an inquiry heard from a developer this week that being subject to a government non-disclosure agreement was “not helpful” for community engagement.

During a new consultation on changes to the consumer standards, the Regulator of Social Housing has revealed plans to bring in an electrical safety tenant satisfaction measure.

The House of Lords’ Industry and Regulators Committee found delays at the Building Safety Regulator to be “unacceptable” and to be putting the government at risk of missing its target of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament.

St Pancras Coroner’s Court issued a prevention of future deaths report to a private landlord after an inquest following a six-month-old child’s death found that his family were living in a home with “thick and black, knee-high mould”.

In Scotland, guidance was published on how social landlords can support residents experiencing terminal illness and their families.

The Senedd’s housing committee urged the Welsh government to ensure social landlords receive “additional funding” to support implementation of the new Building Safety (Wales) Bill.

Meanwhile, a warning came from Northern Ireland that social housing schemes have been pushed to “the brink of collapse” by a recent government grant cut that could render nearly half of houses unviable.

With landlords spending record amounts on repairs and maintenance, the government is floating a ban on referral fees for housing disrepair claims as it seeks to tackle “unscrupulous” claim-farming activity in the sector.

We’ve also recently published two major investigations – if you only read one thing this week, it should be our examination of murder and suicide involving domestic abuse, which contains vital learning for social landlords. Inside Housing analysed every domestic homicide review since 2017 that contained recommendations for the sector – 76 in total – to pull out the crucial lessons for housing teams.

We also looked at Capital Letters, the firm that was set up with an enterprising plan to help London councils cope with the temporary accommodation crisis. The investigation used insights from the company’s financial records, former staffers, the chief executive, clients and investors to find out what went wrong.

As part of Inside Housing’s new Cities Encyclopaedia, we explored how Cambridge City Council’s new climate strategy aims to become a net zero council by 2030.

Have a great weekend.

Stephen Delahunty, news editor, Inside Housing

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