Morning Briefing: housing secretary to support report calling for ‘beautiful’ housing

In the news

The Telegraph says housing secretary James Brokenshire will today back a Policy Exchange report calling on every council to work with local people to produce a design and style guide for new homes.

This will ensure, he will say, that communities see new homes “rejuvenation” rather than a burden.

The 68-page Policy Exchange report titled Building More, Building Beautiful is available here and has a foreword written by the housing secretary. The report was co-authored by ousted mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales, philosopher Sir Roger Scruton and Jack Airey of Policy Exchange.

A key recommendation of the report is to insist “every local planning authority produces a design and style guide within eighteen months”.

In the foreword, Mr Brokenshire writes: “I support this report’s intention; to start a debate about the design, style and quality of new housing and how it best meets people’s needs. In the coming months I look forward to discussing these matters further.”

Elsewhere, the media continues to cover the Grenfell Inquiry. Thermal camera footage taken by firefighters shows that it took three separate attempts to extinguish flames around a fridge freezer in the Grenfell Tower flat where last summer’s tragic fire began, according to The Guardian’s latest coverage of the public inquiry.

You can read Inside Housing’s daily round-up here.

More than 10,000 people successfully challenged their council tax bills last year, The Daily Mail reports. It says the Valuation Office Agency accepted that 10,120 people were paying too much through the levy.

More than a quarter of London’s housebuilding and construction workforce is from outside the UK but within the EU, according to a report in the Belfast Telegraph, which also points out that the non-UK element of the workforce has a lower proportion of over 45s.

Housing maintenance and care provider Mears has agreed a £75 million project to buy and refurbish 365 homes in the London Borough of Waltham Forest to create affordable homes, says Construction Enquirer.