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Three stock transfer councils register as social landlords
Three councils which previously offloaded their housing stock have become registered providers of social housing.
South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council, which share services, have successfully registered with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH).
The pair said they attained registered provider status to be eligible to bid for Homes England funding and are still considering whether to re-open their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs).
South Hams transferred its 3,000 council homes to Tor Homes in 1999, while West Devon sold its 1,300-home stock to West Devon Homes in the same year.
Both Tor Homes and West Devon Homes later became part of 36,000-home landlord LiveWest.
The councils are currently recorded in official statistics as owning just two homes each.
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In May last year, Inside Housing revealed that South Hams and West Devon were among a number of non-stock-retaining councils which were interested in setting up HRAs.
At the time, the authorities said: “It would be helpful if government reviewed policy to make it easier and commercially viable for local authorities to deliver the houses that their communities need.”
The government has since scrapped the HRA debt cap, which imposed a limit on how much councils were able to borrow to invest in housing.
A spokesperson for South Hams and West Devon councils said: “We have become a registered provider to allow us to apply for capital funding through Homes England which would assist in offering lower rents.
“We are currently reviewing what implications this will have around community housing in the district and borough.”
They added they are not planning to have a housing delivery programme large enough to tip over the 200-home threshold, above which councils are required to open an HRA.
Daventry District Council in the West Midlands has also joined the registered provider list, having transferred its 3,100 homes to Daventry & District Housing – now part of 10,000-home Futures Housing Group – in 2007.
The council told Inside Housing it has only registered because it has “a small number” of shared ownership homes which were not transferred to Daventry & District Housing and that regulation changes as part of the government’s social housing rents policy starting in 2020 requires such homes to be held by a registered provider.
It added that it is not seeking to re-establish its HRA or acquire any more housing stock.
Liverpool City Council announced plans to re-open its HRA in May, having transferred its homes to various housing associations during the 2000s.
It completed registration with the RSH in August, becoming the first council to do so since 2016, not including local authority mergers and reorganisations.
Peterborough and Sunderland councils have since unveiled similar ambitions, while City of Bradford Council said last month it has been told by government to open an HRA to account for its housing stock.
