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Morning Briefing: final day of Labour Party conference
Labour’s annual party conference has kicked off for its final day, with Jeremy Corbyn due to make his keynote address just after midday.
In the news
Sources told Inside Housing last night that no housing announcements were expected, though it is likely to feature as a prominent theme in the leader’s speech.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has produced a blog on its website about the conference so far.
Elsewhere across the media, The Guardian runs a piece on projects to bring England’s 200,000 empty homes back into use.
The same paper also has a short feature on disability charity Leonard Cheshire, which is facing criticism for its decision to sell off homes lived in by vulnerable residents.
Meanwhile, The Times reports on a study of driverless cars in Edinburgh, which claimed that widespread adoption of the technology would release thousands of acres of land for new housing.
The Daily Mail has claimed that people hit by the ground rents scandal are facing price tags of £50,000 to buy the freehold for their houses, while The Telegraph says “tens of thousands” of first-time buyers have had their purchases held up by a flaw in the Help to Buy ISA system.
In local press, Brighton & Hove News runs an interesting story about a report passed to the city council’s housing committee yesterday, which suggests that the most vulnerable people are not being allocated social housing.
Only 4% of available social rent homes in the area were taken up by people under the care of social services, less than half the council’s 10% target.
In Plymouth, it’s reported that people made homeless by an arson attack at a block owned by Sanctuary Housing have been told they will still need to pay rent on their flats.
The housing association said it is covering the “full costs” of alternative accommodation and is making a daily payment to people staying with family and friends.
Elsewhere, Stephen Javes, the retiring chief executive of Orwell Housing, has told the Ipswich Star it has become “trickier to deliver services” as the government has restricted grant funding for the sector.
Meanwhile, David Orr has published the second of a series of blogs on the National Housing Federation website, this time about the changing nature of housing associations.
And finally, Ken Lee, chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, has written a piece for Public Finance about how the government can show it values social housing.
On social media
Paul Smith, cabinet member for housing at Bristol City Council, has taken a view on the news that L&Q will stop using fixed-term tenancies:
A housing association saying they will scrap fixed term tenancies and then expecting praise is like a parent saying - I’ve stopped beating my children. Great that it’s stopped but it should never have happened inthe first place #UKHousing
— Paul Smith Bristol (@bristolpaul)A housing association saying they will scrap fixed term tenancies and then expecting praise is like a parent saying - I’ve stopped beating my children. Great that it’s stopped but it should never have happened inthe first place #UKHousing
— Paul Smith Bristol (@bristolpaul) September 25, 2018
What’s on
- It’s the final day of the Labour Party conference, with Jeremy Corbyn set to deliver a keynote speech at 12.15pm
- The Grenfell Tower Inquiry will continue to hear evidence from the London Fire Brigade’s Andrew Roe, as well as Mark Kentfield
The big issues that impact the regeneration and delivery of social housingSPONSORED ARTICLE
