The government’s White Paper – Communities in control: real people, real power – released on Wednesday, sets out proposals to give citizens and communities more power and greater influence over local decisions that affect them. The paper recognises the role played by housing professionals in creating successful communities. It proposes support for the development of strong housing cooperatives and wants to extend the expertise of tenant management organisations from housing to a wider neighbourhood management.
In response to the next three-year strategy in the housing market renewal (HMR) programme, Cabe, English Heritage and the Sustainable Development Commission have launched a new action plan. The programme was initially established in 12 pathfinder areas across the north of England to attract new households into neighbourhoods of deprivation and revive some 40,000 homes. However the market downturn has shifted the agenda away from housing into ‘design-led’ regeneration programmes that will deliver sustainable places and improve the quality of life.
Research by Inside Housing has found that at least 31 local authorities have said they will not meet the decent homes standard for their council properties, to be met by 2010. These 31 authorities will still have to carry out work on up to 87 per cent of their homes. Waverley Council, one of the councils affected, said that the way councils housing is financed hampers their ability to improve tenants’ homes and said if the housing revenue account was abolished, the council would be more likely to afford to improve the houses. The government argues that 95 per cent of councils will hit the target.
Following on from his announcement on Wednesday that he was investing £60 million into reducing the number of empty homes in London, mayor Boris Johnson wants to scrap Ken Livingston’s rule that half of all new housing built be affordable. Mayor Johnson plans to replace this with a city-wide target of 50,000 new affordable homes by 2011, with targets negotiated with individual boroughs; along with a higher proportion of intermediate rent and shared ownership properties.
Bank executives are expected to lobby the Bank of England today to extend the special liquidity scheme it put in place in April, to free up some money in the financial sector. The high street banks are arguing that the £50 billion scheme has not done enough to restore confidence in the markets. However Mervyn King, governor of the Bank, has already said that the scheme was not designed to restore the mortgage market to the ‘wild lending’ seen before the credit crunch hit.
And finally a council has had to apologise for sending voting papers to 500 dead people. The South Cambridgeshire District Council said it was regrettable that the voting papers have been sent to ‘a number of people who are no longer tenants of the council either because they have moved away, given up their tenancy, or … passed away’. Officials said the papers would be reissued and a new election held.