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Morning Briefing: veterans with PTSD to get social housing priority
Veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues will be given extra priority in social housing allocations, The Sun reports today
In the news
Housing secretary James Brokenshire has told The Sun newspaper that he will back its campaign to give veterans with mental health issues the same treatment as those with physical problems.
The government will today publish a consultation on the proposals – which would give individuals priority for housing even if they are not from the area.
Elsewhere, various news outlets have continued to cover and follow-up the Shelter commission’s social housing report published yesterday.
Channel 4 has uploaded a clip of an interview with commissioners Ed Miliband and Baroness Warsi, while The Guardian runs a story where Mr Miliband calls for Jeremy Corbyn to go further on housing.
The Belfast Telegraph has also published a video of Mr Miliband responding to a question from Inside Housing at the launch event yesterday.
The Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett backed the commission’s report in a piece yesterday, while shadow housing secretary John Healey wrote a blog about it for the HuffPost.
Reverend Mike Long, minister at Notting Hill Methodist Church and chair of the commission, has also written a piece for HuffPost.
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In other news, The Times reports that developer Lendlease has been awarded a £190m contract to restore Manchester City Council’s town hall – despite continuing to refuse to cover the cost of removing dangerous cladding from towers it built in the city.
And private housing provider Serco has lost its Home Office asylum accommodation for Scotland, according to the BBC, following a lock-change row in Glasgow last summer.
Mears has taken over the Scotland contract, though as Reuters reports, Serco will still operate asylum housing in many other parts of the UK. You can read Inside Housing’s story here.
In West Yorkshire, a government planning inspector has backed Bradford Council’s decision to block housing association Incommunities from building 41 homes on a scrap yard site over access issues, the local Telegraph & Argus reports.
And finally, in some positive news, the Evening Standard reports that a man who spent 20 years sleeping rough has now been voted London’s happiest bus driver.
On social media
People are still talking about the Shelter commission’s final report from yesterday, including James Strang, president of the Chartered Institute of Housing:
Well said Aileen and the housing sector is up for it but the west minister government needs to support it they should take a leaf out of the Scottish and Welsh governments book t.co/3eWMmZviOy
— James Strang (@strangparkhead)Well said Aileen and the housing sector is up for it but the west minister government needs to support it they should take a leaf out of the Scottish and Welsh governments book https://t.co/3eWMmZviOy
— James Strang (@strangparkhead) January 9, 2019
In all the talk of numbers there is a real danger that we we fail to realise that a major culture change is required in social housing if we are to really share power with tenants as called for in @Shelter Commission Report #BuildSocialHousing @insidehousing
— Tom Murtha (@tomemurtha)In all the talk of numbers there is a real danger that we we fail to realise that a major culture change is required in social housing if we are to really share power with tenants as called for in @Shelter Commission Report #BuildSocialHousing @insidehousing
— Tom Murtha (@tomemurtha) January 9, 2019
What’s on
- Prime Minister’s Questions will take place in the House of Commons at midday
