Morning Briefing: Blackstone to fund building of new affordable homes

In the news

This morning we reveal a major step from giant equity funder Blackstone into bankrolling the direct development of more affordable housing.

The company, which entered the sector with a bang in January when it purchased housing association Sage, has been getting a foot into the market by buying up Section 106 homes built by private builders.

Now it is taking a step further by establishing a company which will partner with housing associations, councils and government agencies to fund schemes for new development.

The full story is here.

Elsewhere, The Guardian reports on plans by human rights group Liberty to take the Legal Aid Agency to court over its refusal to fund a challenge to public space protection orders (PSPOs) being made by rough sleepers.

PSPOs can be used to criminalise begging and rough sleeping.

The lifting of the cap on borrowing on council’s Housing Revenue Account is exercising housing bloggers this morning. First, John Perry of the Chartered Institute of Housing writes on Public Finance that accountancy changes are necessary to prevent the debt being added to the national books. And on Local Gov Mark Cook of Anthony Collins Solicitors says council’s “attitudes” will be more important than borrowing powers in terms of scaling up building.

The other big topic for this morning’s commentators is land. The Guardian runs a blog by Alastair Parvin which echoes calls for councils to use their new freedoms to allow self builders to build homes on small patches of land in their communities.

On City Metric, John Elledge argues that there is not enough brownfield land to solve the housing crisis and some greenfield development is inevitable.

Elsewhere, the National Housing Federation (NHF) publishes a comment piece from Sarah-Jane Gay, an external affairs manager for London and South East at the NHF, about whether devolution can solve homelessness.

She writes: “Devolution is just a tool. But it’s a tool that helps housing associations to work with each other and their combined authorities to provide homes and support, tell their story to central government and identify innovative new ways of working.”

Bloomberg warns about the London property market in a piece this morning, saying it is “in bad shape – possibly even worse than it looks on paper” because so few can afford to buy.

In local news the Abergavenny Chronicle reports on plans to extend a scheme which prioritises the over-50s to help let hard-to-let social homes.