Morning Briefing: social tenant claims he was punished for speaking to media

In the news

The Guardian, which has had a particular drive in recent weeks to expose segregation on housing estates, has a story on a tenant on one of those estates.

Thomas Reames said that his probation period was extended after he told the newspaper that social tenants had no access to the lifts in his block.

In a statement, Southern responded: “It would not be right to discuss the specific details of a customer’s tenancy account. However, we can assure you that our communication with Mr Reames and Mrs Reames, which has been ongoing for some weeks, has nothing at all to do with any contact that Mr Reames may have had with the press.”

The same newspaper reports that the accountancy watchdog has launched an investigation into the audit of the troubled outsourcing group Interserve.

Accountancy firm Grant Thornton, which audited Interserve’s accounts in 2015, 2016 and 2017, has previously come under fire for its auditing of the company’s accounts, as well as its auditing of the café chain Patisserie Valerie, which went into administration in January.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that intergenerational inequality means rich parents are vital for young people to access the property market.

It bases the story on a report from the Resolution Foundation, which reveals that those whose parents are “house rich” are almost three times as likely to become homeowners by the age of 30 than those whose parents have no property wealth.

Elsewhere, The Times has an in-depth piece on the growth of modular housing in the UK, examining why house builders are slow to adopt new technology.

It has a report from analysts JLL showing that currently the construction cost per unit of factory-built homes is 12% higher than traditional building methods.

Council housing is also under the spotlight, with the Economist running a brief article on the remarkable comeback of councils building homes in the UK.

The article notes the many arguments in favour of building more council housing to solve the UK’s housing affordability crisis, but naturally for the Economist it concludes that the government should just relax planning laws instead.

And in Civil Service World, the Home Office denies that asylum seekers are being housed in “degrading conditions”.

It says it is happy for private contractors to continue to carry out their own inspections of housing they manage.

On social media

As far as stigma against social housing tenants goes, there’s not much worse than this leaflet purporting to be from a local parish council:

"Unsavoury characters walking past your homes and into your schools".

"Social housing traditionally attracts drugs and other illegal activities"

Is this leaflet *from* the local parish council? It is difficult to tell as the phrasing is all a bit childish. t.co/ws2v6Gzk8F

— Rob Gershon (@Simplicitly)

"Unsavoury characters walking past your homes and into your schools".

"Social housing traditionally attracts drugs and other illegal activities"

Is this leaflet *from* the local parish council? It is difficult to tell as the phrasing is all a bit childish. https://t.co/ws2v6Gzk8F

— Rob Gershon (@Simplicitly) April 12, 2019