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Short on time? Wednesday’s housing news in five minutes
A round-up of the top stories this morning from Inside Housing and elsewhere
Top story: Council to use new HRA borrowing powers to pump extra £125m into housing
A Midlands council is set to use new borrowing powers to pump an extra £125m into housing.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council hopes the investment will allow it to build and acquire 1,000 new council homes over the next six years on top of the 370 it has already programmed.
Next week the authority’s cabinet will consider an officer’s report recommending it approves the £125m in new Housing Revenue Account (HRA) capital borrowing between 2020/21 and 2024/25.
It represents a huge increase in its housing delivery programme, which is currently worth £64.7m over the period.
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Pregnant woman forced to sleep on the floor after council’s failings
A pregnant woman who approached her local council for help after becoming homeless was forced to sleep on the floor in a flat miles from her support network, an investigation by the care watchdog has revealed.
Tower Hamlets Council delayed assessing the woman, did not do enough to prevent her from becoming homeless, and did not consider whether the accommodation it found for her was suitable, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said.
Lunchtime long read
Picture: Belinda Lawley
Elizabeth Froude took over as chief executive at one of the biggest developers in the sector – Platform Housing Group – last summer.
She sets out her plans to keep building social rented homes, form more partnerships and explains how commercial models may play a bigger part in the organisation’s future.
Quote of the day
“We are determined to use our approach to digital as an opportunity to deliver services that are much more personalised and tailored to people’s individual needs than ever before.”
Jehan Weerasinghe, managing director at Glasgow Housing Association, says digital inclusion in housing is crucial but it will only work if we centre it around customers.
In the papers
Picture: Getty
UK house prices rose slower than the general cost of living in the past decade, bucking the boom of the previous 10 years, research by Nationwide Building Society suggests.
The BBC reports that property values were down by 1% from the start to the end of the 2010s after taking inflation into account.
Meanwhile, The Guardian explores whether it is possible for young people to get onto the housing ladder without help.
Local news
Picture: Getty
Councillors in Weston-super-Mare have criticised Homes England over inaction on a development site in the town centre.
The government agency was accused over having swept in “full of ideas” but had not made any progress, Bristol Live reports.
The redevelopment of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site for large-scale social housing faces problems after the Greenock Telegraph revealed that toxic contamination on the land is worse than previously thought.
And Scottish Housing News reports that the Scottish government spent more than £100m to mitigate the effects of UK government austerity during 2019.
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