Leeds council has announced it will build new houses in the city for the first time in 20 years, as council leaders declare affordable housing to be a top priority. The council is seeking tenders to build almost 80 properties across three sites, 27 of which will be council homes. Leeds has only 57,000 council
An upcoming report from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) calls for those involved in delivering affordable housing to see the recession as an opportunity to review and improve policy and practice. Councils, in particular, were told they currently lack the skills to assess the economic viability of affordable housing schemes, and needed to make
Housing minister Margaret Beckett said yesterday that the lifting of restrictions on councils to borrow private sector money would help fund social housing programmes. She is believed to have asked the Treasury to let councils have more financial freedom, allowing them to borrow freely on the open market. She added that some restrictions were already
A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader
And in related news, a House of Commons communities and local government select committee says councils should have more autonomy to shape the development of their communities. The MPs found that large city and county councils feel that they are not being given sufficient scope to develop their role, and called for central government and
Most of England’s social housing could come under the control of housing associations within a few years because of the system for funding council housing, housing experts have warned. They are calling for reform to the housing revenue account (HCA) to allow local authorities to keep their rents and reinvest in existing or new stock
Across England the average discount on a local authority home has fallen from 27 per cent in 1997/98 to 11 per cent in 2007/08, junior housing minister Iain Wright said in response to parliamentary questions. The trend was most dramatic in London, where the average discount was worth 53 per cent of an average right-to-buy
For the first time in nearly 20 years English local councils are to begin constructing homes, following last week’s announcement by John Healey allowing town halls to retain rent from council housing and receipts from the right-to-buy scheme. Analysts predict that nearly 140,000 homes will be built in the next decade, as local authorities start
Meanwhile, councils have been given a year’s grace on targets in recession-affected industries such as housebuilding. Communities and Local Government has decided that targets for indicators, such as the number of new homes built, will now not be set until April 2010.
Targets aimed at speeding up English planning decisions may have led to councils rejecting developments, the National Audit Office warns. The 13-week target had resulted in some ‘perverse consequences’ it says, as more applications were rejected. Reviewing 100 applications, the NAO found that 98 per cent of rejections were made within the 13-week target but