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Liverpool City Council to appoint new strategic housing delivery team
Liverpool City Council will appoint a new strategic housing delivery team as part of its ambitions for a major return to housebuilding.
As part of the plan, the local authority will significantly scale back the role of its housing company, Liverpool Foundations Homes (LFH), launched in December 2018, and LFH staff will be transferred to the council.
Joe Anderson, mayor of Liverpool, unveiled plans in May 2019 to reopen the council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and start building homes again for the first time in 30 years.
The council registered as a social housing provider with the Regulator of Social Housing three months later and became a Homes England funding partner in November 2019, making it eligible to receive grant.
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The new team will draw up plans to achieve the council’s ambition to deliver 30,000 new homes in the city by 2030 and to retrofit 4,000 homes to become more energy-efficient.
LFH will continue to operate as a stock-holding company owned by the council, retaining its existing homes.
Frank Hont will stay on as chair, while chief executive Mark Kitts will be seconded back to the council’s regeneration directorate to manage the new team.
Mr Anderson said: “The city has a diverse population with differing housing needs and aspirations, so it is important that we do what we can to help people in every situation to get the home they deserve, and we need to rebalance the city’s housing market with a wider choice of the homes that people need.
“That is why I have pledged that we will build new council houses, incorporating social and affordable rent, as well as rent-to-buy and shared ownership tenures.
“I want us to be recognised as a local authority that builds council homes for all, in wards across the city that have not benefitted from new build properties for a significant period of time.”
Mr Hont said: “It is completely understandable why the council, like many across the country, has taken the decision to change the operational focus of housing delivery, as a by-product of changing government policy.
“The council is faced with making very difficult choices, and I am pleased to say that housing and the role of Foundations will continue to play a vital role in supporting the council’s ambitions.”
At the end of the 1990s, Liverpool City Council owned more than 40,000 homes, but offloaded its stock to housing associations in a series of transfers in the 2000s.
Around half of Britain’s councils made similar decisions between 1988 and 2015 to leverage investment in ageing housing stock.
However, a handful of stock-transfer councils are reopening HRAs, following the government’s decision in October 2018 to scrap a cap on how much they could borrow through the ring-fenced account.
Sunderland, Bradford, Peterborough and Bromley have followed Liverpool’s lead.
