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Morning Briefing: private tenants face ‘heat, eat or pay rent’ choice
Private tenants on low incomes face choosing between basic living necessities and paying the rent, the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has said.
In the news
National papers including The Guardian and The Telegraph cover the CIH research on the Local Housing Allowance freeze this morning, as well as Inside Housing.
Housing benefit levels are falling behind private rents in nine out of 10 cases, researchers found, putting tenants at risk of homelessness and poverty.
Meanwhile, house prices grab headlines across the media this morning.
The Sun has produced a piece based on the Hometrack UK Cities House Price Index showing price rises in major metropolitan areas across the country.
Property values in Bristol, Cambridge, London and Oxford have risen by more than 50% in a decade.
But a Reuters poll of housing market experts has suggested prices in the capital will fall this year and next – and analysts predicted a one-in-three chance of a crash.
And the Daily Mail’s This is Money website asks if developers are inflating the prices of homes built through Help to Buy.
It focuses on a couple who were offered a two-bedroom flat in south-east London through the scheme for £425,000, but later found a three-bedroom house nearly the double the size for £410,000 nearby.
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Elsewhere, a planning dispute is raging near Newcastle-under-Lyme in the Midlands, where housing association Aspire is hoping to purchase a playing field site to develop new homes.
A petition to stop the sale has been signed by 1,585 and delivered to the council, the Stoke Sentinel reports.
In Surrey, Guildford Borough Council has proposed building another 555 homes on its green belt sites by 2024 after being told by a planning inspector that its local plan requires extra housing, according to Get Surrey.
Scottish Housing News reports that more than 2,500 new homes will be built in East Kilbride after it received a funding boost from the £1.13bn Glasgow City Region Deal.
And in Northern Ireland, Clanmil Housing Group has announced plans for the region’s first factory-made homes, the BBC reports.
Finally, The Guardian has the lowdown on the shortlist for Building Design magazine’s Carbuncle Cup, given annually to the building deemed the ugliest of the year.
On social media
Another symptom of the housing crisis: @CIHhousing report shows growing ‘rent gap’ between between rents in insecure PRS and frozen HB. There is solution to relieving hardship & giving better VFM for tax payer -build more social housing #ukhousing t.co/ql67xKqpU3
— Paul Hackett (@PaulHackett10)Another symptom of the housing crisis: @CIHhousing report shows growing ‘rent gap’ between between rents in insecure PRS and frozen HB. There is solution to relieving hardship & giving better VFM for tax payer -build more social housing #ukhousing https://t.co/ql67xKqpU3
— Paul Hackett (@PaulHackett10) August 29, 2018
Benefit freeze puts private renting out of reach for people on low incomes and risks fuelling homelessness: our new report out today t.co/ZrkiVcVGDF #LHAgap pic.twitter.com/OEbt6ZK01w
— Chartered Institute of Housing (@CIHhousing)Benefit freeze puts private renting out of reach for people on low incomes and risks fuelling homelessness: our new report out today https://t.co/ZrkiVcVGDF #LHAgap pic.twitter.com/OEbt6ZK01w
— Chartered Institute of Housing (@CIHhousing) August 29, 2018
