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Flurry of councils register with RSH to access rough sleeper funding
A flurry of councils which previously offloaded their housing stock to a housing association have registered as social landlords in recent months to access grant for ex-rough sleeper accommodation.
Eleven local authorities in total have completed registration with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) between September and the last update in December.
Five of these – Three Rivers, Tunbridge Wells, Bedford, Stratford-on-Avon and Hastings – confirmed to Inside Housing that they had done so to access grant through the Next Steps Accommodation Programme (NSAP).
NSAP was launched in July with £266m in funding to provide supported housing for rough sleepers given emergency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic through the Everyone In initiative.
Herefordshire and Telford & Wrekin councils both said they had registered to deliver supported housing without directly mentioning NSAP.
None of these seven said they were currently considering establishing a Housing Revenue Account (HRA).
Peterborough and Bromley councils, among the 11 recent registrations, have previously announced their intentions to reopen their HRA to assist with their ambitions as remerging social landlords.
The remaining two councils – Rother and Bath & North East Somerset – did not provide Inside Housing with a reason for their registering with the RSH when contacted.
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Together, the 11 councils received nearly £13.8m from the first wave of NSAP allocations, announced in late October.
They join four stock transfer local authorities that registered with the RSH over the summer, with three of these – Dorset, North Norfolk and Chelmsford – also identifying bidding for NSAP as their motivation for doing so.
In addition to the 11 local authorities, three council-owned housing companies have joined the RSH’s list of registered providers since autumn.
These are Lumen Housing, a subsidiary of Blackpool Council’s ALMO Blackpool Housing Company, Broadway Living, owned by Ealing Council, and Newham Council’s Populo Homes.
Broadway Living has been tasked with delivering more than 1,100 new homes using £99.4m in grant secured by the council in 2018, with long-term plans for up to 5,500.
Deborah Heenan, chief executive of Populo Living, said Populo Homes will manage affordable housing it delivers, with more than 110 London Affordable Rent tenants expected to move in over the next year.
Other new registrations include Redcar & Cleveland Voluntary Development Agency (RCVDA) Community Housing.
Mike Milen, chief executive of RCVDA, said the charity had decided to become a registered social landlord “to look at the development of its own niche housing solutions”, having worked with housing associations in the area for several years.
Southampton-based almshouse charity Thorner’s Homes has re-registered, having previously converted to a charitable incorporated organisation structure.
Community benefit society The Peninsula Trust, based in Cornwall, said it did not have capacity to comment on its registration because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
M&G Shared Ownership UK, a subsidiary of major global investor M&G, registered as a for-profit social housing provider in November.
Update: at 14.43pm 19/01/21
The story was updated following information provided by Stratford-on-Avon Council
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