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Morning Briefing: council cladding powers ‘useless’
New council powers to remove dangerous Grenfell-style cladding from private blocks of flats “are proving largely useless”, and other housing news
The Guardian reports that according to Manchester City Council, as few as one in 10 private blocks clad in aluminium composite material can be fixed by councils using the powers.
The authority has been struggling to persuade owners of 15 buildings to take action, the paper says.
Communities secretary James Brokenshire announced in November that government would back local authorities to take control of buildings wrapped in dangerous cladding.
Also this morning, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has produced a series of interesting charts about the UK’s £100bn benefit bill for the BBC.
Meanwhile, HuffPost reports that former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has called for tax breaks for landlords who let to tenants claiming Universal Credits.
In Scotland, a court has dismissed Midlothian Council’s £12m damages claim against an engineering contractor over a social housing development that had to be demolished amid safety fears.
The court ruled that Blyth & Blyth Consulting Engineers should not have to pay because the council raised proceedings more than five years after the loss occurred, according to Scottish Legal News.
Derry Now reports that more than 3,000 people in Derry will be hit by the bedroom tax from April 2020 as mitigation payments run out.
And in Wales, a homelessness charity has warned that fences installed by the Welsh government under a Cardiff rail bridge to deter drug users could demonise vulnerable homeless people, the BBC reports.
Elsewhere, Together Housing is installing ground source heat pumps to serve more than 700 of its homes in Yorkshire and Lancashire in a bid to cut tenants’ fuel bills, The Construction Index reports.
Brighton & Hove Council is to investigate a 5ft crack in the ceiling of a flat in one of its large panel system blocks, The Argus reports, although the council says it has “no specific concerns”.
In Birmingham, The Birmingham Mail reports that the council has teamed up with Solihull Women’s Aid to open a new centre for domestic abuse survivors to prevent them from becoming homeless.
And Conservative-run Wokingham Council has promised a “special consultation” for residents on whether they support “government-inflicted housing numbers” in a bid to get ministers to revise down the area’s development target, per Wokingham Today.
The Economist publishes a piece about London’s tower blocks – focusing on the demolition of council tower blocks and the proliferation of luxury high rises.
And finally, The Guardian runs an opinion piece about Persimmon’s new offer of a “retention” for buyers of its homes.
On social media
On Twitter, Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, picks out one of the charts from the BBC article mentioned above:
One consequence of falling home ownership, less council housing and more private renting with higher rents has been a huge increase in the Housing Benefit bill.
— Paul Johnson (@PJTheEconomist)
At more than £20bn a year this alone is more than whole police budget, more than overseas aid etc pic.twitter.com/2LEgTRu6z2One consequence of falling home ownership, less council housing and more private renting with higher rents has been a huge increase in the Housing Benefit bill.
— Paul Johnson (@PJTheEconomist) March 22, 2019
At more than £20bn a year this alone is more than whole police budget, more than overseas aid etc pic.twitter.com/2LEgTRu6z2
