The Week in Housing: SAHP bidding opens, repairs spend rises and councils rated non-compliant

Another concerning statistic on new build is out this week, with starts in Northern Ireland dropping to the lowest level since 2013. Although Northern Ireland is also exposed to the list of problems dampening development across the UK and beyond, the reason for the 30% drop year-on-year is problems with the sewers. Only 51 of the starts were social homes, so the sector is understandably keen for the government to unblock the pipes, as it were.

One of the Westminster government’s strategies to address the construction slump has been reform of planning – but at least one aspect of this is coming under concerted lobbying: the ability of councils to set tougher environmental rules for new homes. In some cases this has led to policies that require zero-carbon homes.

Meanwhile, the sector continues to invest heavily in existing homes. We ran an exclusive analysis of tender data, trawling through almost £8bn of contracts related to damp, mould and Awaab’s Law.

Tower Hamlets is to spend over £0.5bn on works to its existing homes. The work is needed to bring the council into regulatory compliance – it currently has a C3 consumer grading.

Three more councils have been rated non-compliant on the consumer standards this week. One of them was Runnymede, a council that had already undergone a transformation programme after it was ruled non-compliant under the previous system.

Meanwhile, there was trouble at another C3-graded council, Bristol, as a botched IT transfer appeared to lead to a backlog of 20,000 repairs cases. However, the council says these are not actual outstanding repairs. The full story explains this in some detail, but a Labour councillor (in the Green-majority council) is quoted in our story: “It’s really difficult to know how to interpret the figures. Effectively what it [the report] says is ‘these figures are rubbish, we don’t trust them’.”

And A2Dominion has set up a team to focus on ‘no access’ cases, revealing that it spends £1m a year on this issue. Its aim is to work with residents to focus on early engagement, with issues including the scheduling of appointments at school pick-up and drop-off times on the agenda.

Oversight of tenant management organisations will be stepped up under post-Grenfell plans announced this week.

It’s not all about doing the work, either – as evidenced in a learning report by the Housing Ombudsman on how landlords say sorry when things have gone wrong. A genuine apology can go a long way.

New homelessness figures reveal that the number of rough sleepers in England has reached a record high. The estimate of the number of people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 was 3% higher than last year, and 171% higher than 2010, when records began.

The government announced a £50m funding pot at the same time. Inside Housing readers may also have seen yesterday’s shocking ITV coverage which revealed that children as young as four have been sleeping rough.

The Construction Products Reform White Paper came out this week, with housing secretary Steve Reed promising that it will “address regulatory gaps and long-standing issues in the construction products sector”. Currently, only about 37% of products come under regulation, and the proposals will involve expanding this so all products would be regulated under designated standards or by a new general safety requirement.

And an inquest has told a housing provider to take action on incorrectly installed fire alarms, after the death of a 60-year-old tenant.

Also on building safety, we revealed that insurers are still worried about a redraft of the PAS 9980 guidance on the risk of cladding, which is currently under way. The guidance has become tricky, as insurers can sometimes charge higher premiums on buildings insurance, even after remediation work has been completed to PAS 9980 standards.

The difference of opinion comes down to what level of remediation work is needed. As the industry body put it to Inside Housing: “It’s not just about getting out of the building, it’s about ensuring that people still have a home to return to afterwards.”

This is an issue that our contributing editor Peter Apps explored in an investigation that explains the details of the issue, and why it is important.

Finally, Helen Bird, who was customer voice and influence manager at Amplius, has very sadly died eight days after an attack, and police have opened a murder investigation. Craig Taylor, director of customer operations at Amplius, said: “Helen was a genuinely lovely person, an extremely popular colleague and someone who built up a real rapport with our involved customers.”

Jess McCabe, deputy editor, Inside Housing

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