Morning Briefing: May’s housing taskforce has its first meeting – but where was Raab?

In the news

Theresa May yesterday chaired the first meeting of the government’s housing implementation taskforce.

A press notice put out by the government confirmed the meeting went ahead, attended by several senior government figures, including chancellor Philip Hammond and housing secretary Sajid Javid.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The prime minister reiterated that a step change was needed right across government and that all departments needed to think creatively about how they can contribute to building the homes the country needs.”

One person who did not attend the meeting was new housing minister Dominic Raab, a fact picked up on by The Negotiator. The estate agency industry magazine described Mr Raab’s omission from the list of attendees as “oddly conspicuous”.

Elsewhere, the Huffington Post has a report on Dominic Raab’s appearance in front of MPs yesterday following an urgent question on fire safety tabled by shadow housing secretary John Healey. The news site reports concerns from MPs about the progress of building material safety testing, with Labour MP David Lammy saying it is possible for “another Grenfell” to happen.

Inside Housing also carried a report of the debate yesterday, focusing on Mr Raab’s assertion that there are unilikely to be any fire safety issues arising from a withdrawn fire safety test.

Elsewhere, Bournemouth Borough Council is to remove controversial bars from public benches, which were installed to stop people sleeping or lying down on them, the BBC reports. The plan had sparked protests from those who considered it “inhumane”, as well as criticism from Crisis and rapper Professor Green among others.

Southwark News has a report about developer Delancey’s fresh plan to redevelop Elephant and Castle. The latest plans, submitted to the council yesterday, contain 116 homes for social rent. Earlier plans, which only contained 33 homes for social rent, were voted down by councillors last month over concerns about affordability of homes.

Newspaper i News is reporting government research showing that new accessible homes in Scotland are “too small for wheelchairs”.

Investment website IPE Real Assets has a report about M&G Investments agreeing a £65m financial deal with housing association Watford Community Housing.

Finally today, the Red Brick housing blog site has published a post in response to the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) research last week showing the fall in social rented stock over the past few years. The blog points out that the Right to Buy is not the biggest factor in the fall of social renting, pointing instead to conversions of vacant social stock to ‘affordable’ rents and new homes being built to be let at higher rents. You can read Inside Housing’s report of the CIH research here.

On social media

Today marks 100 years since women (over the age of 30) were granted the right to vote.

Neil Goodrich, vice-chair of CIH Futures, is marking the occasion by encouraging people to tweet about inspiration women in housing:

Alright #ukhousing - it’s been 100yrs since women got the right to vote. Given the anniversary, we @CIHFutures would love to hear your inspirational women in #housing stories.

— Neil Goodrich (@NGoodrichHsg)

Alright #ukhousing - it's been 100yrs since women got the right to vote. Given the anniversary, we @CIHFutures would love to hear your inspirational women in #housing stories.

— Neil Goodrich (@NGoodrichHsg) February 6, 2018

What’s on

• The British Property Federation’s National Residential Investment Conference takes place in London
• There will be a tribunal to decide who pays for cladding removal costs on a building in Croydon