Morning Briefing: association in £2bn offsite deal

In the news

The sector’s latest offsite deal involves Laing O’Rourke’s long-trailed but much-delayed offsite factory. The Times reports that Network Homes is part of a deal to build homes in partnership with the company and with developer Stanhope.

A few outlets this morning, including The Guardian, are covering a report by Countrywide, which finds that private tenants in the UK paid a record £50bn in rent in 2017.

The Guardian columnist John Harris writes that the lettings platform Airbnb is pushing up rents and compromising privacy and security. He calls for further regulation.

Elsewhere in the private rented sector, columnist Barbara Ellen warned in yesterday’s Observer that older people ‘blocking beds’ are not to blame for the UK’s housing crisis.

The Observer also reported on a survey by a charity finding that asylum seekers are being placed in very poor housing conditions.

And in news that could be significant for Scottish landlords with similar problems, The Times reports that the Scottish Government – not the main hospital contractor at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital – will cover the £6m cost of removing and replacing dangerous cladding.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Sunday Politics carried a segment on housing policy in Wandsworth yesterday, which could be a key battleground in May’s council elections.

Labour councillor Aydin Dikerdem claimed the council, which is run by the Conservatives, is “a pioneer of all the worst possible housing policies”. The segment starts at 42 minutes in.

Another council in London, Westminster, has found that some of its richest residents are willing to pay more council tax. Part of this would go towards helping the homeless, the BBC reports.

The news comes hot on the heels of Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s shadow communities secretary, telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday that the council tax system is “broken” and that his party could replace it.

One council that could be getting better publicity on housing is Windsor Council, whose leader was recently engulfed by a media storm after saying that rough sleepers should be cleared out of the town centre before the royal wedding.

Now the council has gone against government guidance on rough sleeping, The Guardian reports, proposing to impose fines on rough sleepers via a Public Spaces Protection Order.

Finally, The Guardian also ran a slightly strange but interesting piece on Saturday, in which one of its housing reporters, Robert Booth, discussed how he covers the housing crisis with the paper’s student and desk editor, Poppy Noor.