2023: Currently Levelling Up secretary, Michael Gove, is in overall charge of housing policy - and delivering on the government's pledge to create more new homes.

Councils are not building enough social housing!

Why? Because the amount they can borrow to build social housing is restricted by government. And because the treasury takes a large portion from Right To Buy sales. Councils can access low-interest loans through a government body, the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB).
They can then invest in commercial property in the hope of a bigger return compared with the interest on their loans. Since 2011, no government money has been made available to build homes in England for low paid people to rent.

Also, the housing minister has no legal or decision making power, there is no dedicated housing ministry.

Adding to the problem

The Localism Act 2011, The Bedroom Tax, the crack down on squatting, the benefits cap, planning laws changed to assist developers.

The situation was made worse by the introduction of Univeral Credit, that left thousands of claimants without money for rent and facing eviction.

 

An unaffordable housing market is guaranteed

Due to “viability assessments”, which allow developers to limit contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing. The current definition for affordable rented housing is defined as 80% of the market rent, while social rent is defined as 60% of the market rent. But a new definition of affordable housing is to be introduced that does not include social housing.

Private sector rents rise due to a lack of affordable social housing.

Tory policy on affordable housing reduces to putting developer' profitability before long-term community development.

The Return of Rachman

The private sector has responded to the freeze on benefits for single people by converting properties into houses of multiple occupation (HMOs). This is a worrying development bringing back memories of the Rachmanism of the 1960s and 70s.

 

Eco-Towns 2017 - only one is started

10 Eco-Towns were proposed in 2008, in 2012 only four got the green light.

The reason the scheme has foundered is several fold. Grant Shapps slashed public funding for the scheme by a half. Most the money for this scheme was coming from the private sector and when they don't want to know, it's a sure sign the opportunities to make a fast buck are largely absent. Absent because the building spec' for these eco sites was rigorous, far more rigorous than Bob the builder et al was used to bodging to - these builds were supposed to be carbon zero dwellings. Add to the mix, lobby groups such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England protesting against the schemes, and perhaps, more importantly the government reneged on its promise to ease up planning regulations for the scheme.

UP

Garden City

On a low-lying swamp

March 2014

George Osborne announced his plan for 15,000 new homes at Ebbsfleet in Kent and strangely described it as a new Garden City, "the first for 100 years". More silliness, no garden city has ever been built according to the specification set by Ebenezer Howard.

Ebenezer Howard's original vision of slumless, smokeless cities' was a part of a campaign for co-operative development, land reform and land capture. One school of thought describes Howard's vision as radical and socialist but another suggests that it was reactionary, that is, a reaction to the overcrowding and industrial pollution of growing Victorian cities and a call for a return to pre-capitalist forms of production.

Ebenezer wrote in 1898:

"Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together," and "Town and Country must be married, and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization." The first and only garden cities ever built were Letchworth and Welwyn, built in the first quarter of the last century did not quite match up to the ideal and soon became nothing more than dormitory towns.

There was no place in Ebenezer's scheme of things for absentee landlords and speculators; his scheme is about self-sufficiency, with industry and services providing for the needs of the local community, with profits ploughed back into community development.

George's Ebbsfleet plan describes no more than another dormitory town, the plans for which have been in place as far back as 1996. In 2012, the government and local councils agreed with the developer, Land Securities, to build 22,000 houses at Ebbsfleet. (Must have missed George announcing that one.) The fact of Land Securities's involvement clearly rules out applying a 'garden city' tag to Ebbsfleet. And let us not overlook the £4000 per house subsidy that George is kicking in, just to encourage Land Securities to build on a low-lying swamp.

And the only reason there is a HS1 train station at Ebbsfleet, in case you have ever travelled to France and wondered why you are stopping at a station where no gets on and no one gets off, is because Michael Heseltine once dreamed of building a financial centre there. Well, that did not happen but promises have been made to the builders and HS1 needs the revenue. The high speed line has been a flop and George is now promoting it as a commuter line "just 19 minutes to St.Pancras".

Asked why Ebbsfleet had been chosen as the location, Osborne gave the Andrew Marr show a pathetic set of reasons for choosing the location:

"In Ebbsfleet there is the land available, there is fantastic infrastructure, with a high-speed line. It's on the river, it's in the south-east of England, where a lot of the housing pressure has been, and, crucially, we've got local communities and local MPs who support the idea."

In fact, the government have already considered far more desirable locations for new building. A Whitehall report recommended they be built in Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire or Oxfordshire. The report was drawn after Cameron gave a speech in support of reviving the idea of garden cities to address 21st-century housing needs. Nick Clegg gave his support to the report, "As a government we are committed to publishing a prospectus on garden cities, which I very much hope we will do as soon as possible." Nick may have got his copy but the rest of the world is still waiting.

In seems clear that this report will not be seeing the light of day, Dave would not want to upset all those Tory voters, especially those in Witney. And in case you are wondering, the swamp dwelling denizens of Ebbsfleet are unmoved by the prospect of a new housing development, their idyll of 18th century arts and crafts living was crushed with the building of the Blue Water shopping centre.

 

 

UP

Right to Buy introduced, October 1980 

Big discounts offered as an incentive, , very small deposits and 100% mortgages from councils on offer distorted house prices.

1999: few new houses being built. Discounts reduced.

 

2012
Right to Buy v2.0

Discounts increased substantially, house sales boosted

 

April 2012 to November 2015

40,603 homes were sold under right to buy. 
Work began on a mere 3,694 properties.  
A replacement rate of around one home for every 11 sold

Help To Buy 2013

This scheme is easy to understand, it involves people who can't afford to buy a house subsidising those who can.

 

Help to Buy Isa launches

From December 2015 the government was giving away free money to people saving to buy their first home.

Grant Shapps-Green-Fox said:

that there would be one for one replacement for council house sales in 2011. The true figure was one for eight.

 

On 3 January 2014 the government announced plans to increase the maximum discount for council house sales to 70% of its value.

 

2015

Right to Buy extended to Housing Associations

Housing associations have turned into profit hungry property developers, engaging in social cleansing for the purpose of gentrification. There are not enough affordable homes, there are an estimated 300,000 homeless families and 30% of homeless rough sleepers are working.

 

 

The Help to Buy equity loan scheme, which was due to come to an end in 2016, extended until 2020.

 

 

Solution

Councils should be allowed to borrow to build new homes and keep 100% of receipts.

The one for one replacement pledge should be stuck to.

Housing Associations should be told to get back to the task providing affordable social housing and stop money grubbing.

The Minister for Housing must have a ministry and the power to make decisions.

“Viability Assessments” must be binned and the Wimpey boys must be told that they will stick to agreed social house building on new developments.

 

UP

 

Mrs May has pledged to solve the housing crisis - personally?

 The prime minister insists that dealing with the housing shortage is a matter of personal urgency for her; a “burning injustice” to be tackled.

 

Headline Grabbing Housing Announcements

 

2015
Garden City For Ebbsfleet announced by George Osborne?

No one told George that a few houses with gardens does not a Garden City make!

2017
New Garden Towns and Villages announced

The required infrastructure and transport links were not gauranteed.

 

Homes and Communities Agency Hides behind new name

The HCR’s remit was to promote social house building/affordable homes, they seem to be struggling with that. The HCR was set up in 1998, today in 2018 50% fewer affordable homes are being built. Also, mysteriously, the HCR changed its name after the Grenfell fire, to Homes England and was selling itself as: “A new national housing agency to boost housebuilding”.

Gove's Plans, July 24, 2023

 Long-term plan for housing

The Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have set out further plans for regeneration, inner-city densification and housing delivery across England, with transformational plans to supply beautiful, safe, decent homes in places with high-growth potential in partnership with local communities.
From:
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities , Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street, and The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP
Published
24 July 2023

• Today (24 July 2023), as part of a long-term plan for housing, the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have committed to a new era of regeneration, inner-city densification and housing delivery across England, with transformational plans to supply beautiful, safe, decent homes in places with high-growth potential in partnership with local communities.
  
  
• Building on work already underway to meet our commitment in the Levelling Up White Paper to regenerate 20 of our towns and cities, the Levelling Up Secretary has announced the regeneration and renaissance of a further 3 English cities, committing to transformational change in Cambridge, central London and central Leeds.
  
  
• This follows work to level up towns and cities across the country – including in Sheffield and Wolverhampton. The Levelling Up Secretary also outlined plans to continue working closely with local partners in Barrow, to help make Barrow a new powerhouse of the North.
  
  
• £800 million will also be allocated today from the £1.5 billion Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund to unlock up to 56,000 new homes on brownfield sites, taking an infrastructure first approach to build up our cities. We are funding Homes England with £550 million, which with income generated will mean a total investment of £1 billion. We are also providing landmark investments of £150 million to Greater Manchester and £100 million to the West Midlands.
  
  
• Additional reforms to the planning system will speed up new developments, put power in the hands of local communities to build their own homes, and unlock planning decisions – with a new fund of £24 million to scale up local planning capacity, and an additional £13.5 million to stand up a new “super-squad” of experts to support large scale development projects.

Regeneration of 20 places

Following the commitment in the Levelling Up White Paper to regenerate 20 places, the Levelling Up Secretary and Prime Minister set out further plans today on Cambridge, and inner-city London and central Leeds.
Proposals will see Cambridge supercharged as Europe’s science capital, addressing constraints that have left the city with some of the most expensive property markets outside London, and companies fighting over extremely limited lab space and commercial property with prices that rival London, Paris and Amsterdam.

These ambitious plans to support Cambridge include a vision for a new quarter of well-designed, sustainable and beautiful neighbourhoods for people to live in, work and study. A quarter with space for cutting-edge laboratories, commercial developments fully adapted to climate change and that is green, with life science facilities encircled by country parkland and woodland accessible to all who live in Cambridge.
Any development of this scale will have substantial infrastructure requirements. The government will deliver as much of the infrastructure and affordable housing as possible using land value capture – with the local area benefiting from the significant increase in land values that can occur when agricultural land is permitted for residential and commercial development. Land values will reflect the substantial contributions required to unlock the development (see annex).

A Cambridge Delivery Group, chaired by Peter Freeman and backed by £5 million, will be established to begin driving forward this project. The Group will work to turn this vision into a reality, taking a lead on identifying the housing, infrastructure, services and green space required. It will also consider options for an appropriate delivery mechanism that will be needed to lead the long-term work on planning, land acquisition and engagement with developers, starting in this Parliament but running through the next few years as development takes shape.

In the meantime, the Delivery Group will take forward immediate action to address barriers such as water scarcity across the city, including:

• Convening a Water Scarcity Working Group with the Environment Agency, Ofwat, central and local government and innovators across industries to identify and accelerate plans to address water constraints. The Group will include all relevant partners to understand what it would take to accelerate building the proposed new Fens Reservoir and enabling Cambridge to reach its economic potential.
  
  
• Supporting the council in efforts to make sure new developments proposed as part of the local plan can be as sustainable as possible, including whether new houses in planned developments such as Waterbeach and Hartree can be made more water efficient. To support this, the government is announcing today a £3 million funding pot to help support measures to improve the water efficiency of existing homes and commercial property across Cambridge, to help offset demands created by new developments in the local plan.
  
  
• The government will also take definitive action to unblock development where it has stalled, providing £500,000 of funding to assist with planning capacity. Cambridge City Council, Anglian Water, Land Securities PLC and Homes England will work together to accelerate the relocation of water treatment works in Northeast Cambridge (subject to planning permission), unlocking an entire new City quarter – delivering approaching 6,000 sustainable well-designed homes in thriving neighbourhoods – as well as schools, parks and over 1 million square feet of much needed commercial life science research space.

In addition to Cambridge, today the government has also announced:

• A ‘Docklands 2.0’ vision in East London for up to 65,000 homes across multiple sites of significant scale including at Thamesmead, Beckton and Silvertown. Beautiful, well-connected homes and new landscaped parkland will be integral to the vision. We will look at how we can ensure better transport connections from east to west, to ‘crowd in’ local and private investment, and to build the best evidence on how and whether HMG will invest in the future.
  
  
• London will also see the benefits of this government’s decision to allow the Affordable Homes Programme to be directed towards regeneration for the first time – with up to £1 billion available in London alone – as part of a transformative reform that will change how we level up communities across the country. We have also made £1 million available to push forward work with the Mayor to consider how we drive housing delivery in London, including looking at innovative new ways that industrial land can be released for housing.

• A commitment to work with local partners in central Leeds, to regenerate the city centre and explore how a West Yorkshire mass transit system could open up the city to many more workers across the city’s burgeoning financial, digital and legal sectors. This builds on the £40 million that is already being provided by the government to West Yorkshire Combined Authority to support development of the mass transit system and offer a greener, quicker and more reliable option of travel. The government will accelerate work in the centre of Leeds by identifying the remaining barriers to delivery for key housing growth sites within the city rim, including the South Bank, Innovation Arc, and local and neighbourhood plans, potentially delivering up to 20,000 new homes on these sites over the next decade. The government will also work with local authorities to adapt existing HS2 land safeguarded in Leeds City Centre where appropriate, supporting economic growth and housing delivery. Additional revenue funding will be provided to support capacity and development to deliver these ambitions.

• Plans to continue working closely with local partners in Barrow-in-Furness, to help make it a new powerhouse of the North – extending beyond its current boundaries with thousands of new homes and space for new businesses to benefit from the scientific and technical expertise already clustered there.
  
  
• We are also investing £800 million from the £1.5 billion Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund to unlock up to 56,000 new homes across England, to transform disused site and create vibrant communities for people to live and work, while also protecting our cherished green spaces, including further accelerating activity in areas such as Sheffield. We are funding Homes England with £550 million which, in real terms, will be an investment of up to £1 billion through the reinvestment of receipts back into the fund. As set out previously, we are also providing £250 million to Greater Manchester and West Midlands Combined Authorities.

Building up and building out across the country

In addition to targeted action in a few high-potential areas, the government’s plan delivers a package of reforms to unleash building on underused sites in high-demand regions. Densification, done the right way, will transform the opportunities available to people across the country – our inner cities have much lower population densities than comparable Western countries, impacting our productivity. The plan therefore includes:

• Launching a consultation on new Permitted Development Rights, to provide more certainty over some types of development, and how design codes might apply to certain rights to protect local character and give developers greater confidence. New and amended permitted development rights would make it easier to convert larger department stores, space above shops and office space. The plan also backs rural communities, with changes to support farm diversification and development, to allow businesses to extend and more outdoor markets to be held. The government will consult on further measures in the Autumn on how to better support existing homeowners to extend their homes. The government will continue to ensure that local removal of permitted development rights through Article 4 Directions will only be agreed where there is evidence of wholly unacceptable impacts.
  
  
• Taking steps to unblock the bottlenecks in the planning system that are choking and slowing down development, and stopping growth and investment by:
  
  
• Launching a new £24 million Planning Skills Delivery Fund to clear planning backlogs and get the right skills in place.
  
  
• Establishing a new “super-squad” team of leading planners and other experts charged with working across the planning system to unblock major housing developments, underpinned by £13.5 million in funding. The team will first be deployed in Cambridge to boost our plans in the city, before also looking at sites across our eight Investment Zones in England, to provide high-quality homes to go alongside the high-quality jobs being created there.
  
  
• Increasing the amount developers pay in planning fees, following our recent consultation, to ensure all planning departments are better resourced.

The government’s commitment to development and regeneration in and around existing town and city centres is also guiding its consideration of responses to the consultation on updating the National Planning Policy Framework. The government wants to make it easier to progress such developments, and to that end is clear that:

• Development should proceed on sites that are adopted in a local plan with full input from the local community, unless there are strong reasons why it cannot.
  
  
• Local councils should be open and pragmatic in agreeing changes to developments where conditions mean that the original plan may no longer be viable, rather than losing the development wholesale or seeing development mothballed.
  
  
• Better use should be made of small pockets of brownfield land by being more permissive, so more homes can be built more quickly, where and how it makes sense, giving more confidence and certainty to SME builders.

Later in the year, the government will pass the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to put in place our reforms to the planning system that will create more beautiful and sustainable homes in the right places, and publish updates to the National Planning Policy Framework.

Communities taking back control / building beautiful everywhere

To deliver housing anywhere, all new homes built will need to be accepted by the community – they will need to be beautiful, well-connected, designed with local people in mind and be accompanied by the right community infrastructure and green space. Communities must have a say in how and where homes are built.

In this plan, communities will be supported to be at the heart of new development in their areas. This will be achieved by:

• Establishing the Office for Place in Stoke-on-Trent, a new body to lead a design revolution, ensuring beautiful new homes are built according to a simple design code supported by local people. The Office for Place will support residents to demand what they find beautiful from developers – ensuring every local place is built to reflect the individual local character and beauty of every community across the country. Nicholas Boys Smith has been appointed as the interim chair.
  
  
• Supporting councils to deliver high quality up to date local plans, launching a consultation to seek views on our proposals to simplify the system of developing a new plan. Local plans are the best way to ensure the right homes are built in the right places, so the government will work with councils to reduce the cost and bureaucracy associated with getting an updated plan in place. The government is also clear that local authorities should continue to develop their local plans, ensuring local people get their say.

Building safely

In all buildings, the first priority must be keeping people safe. Through the landmark Building Safety Act 2022, the government has overhauled the way we do so with a “golden thread” of accountability and protections for leaseholders from the ruinous costs of fixing the mistakes of others.

The government will not be complacent in its approach to safety – recognising that, as work progresses to densify our towns and cities, people must be given unimpeachable confidence that new homes are safe and decent to live in. This long-term plan for housing therefore builds on our existing progress by:

• Confirming the intention to mandate second staircases in new residential buildings above 18m, following confirmation from expert bodies that they support this threshold. This responds to the call from the sector for coherence and certainty. This is a considered and gradual evolution of safety standards, which, when taken with our other fire safety measures and reforms ensures the safety of people in all tall buildings – both new and existing. The government is clear that this new regulation cannot jeopardise the supply of homes by disrupting schemes that have been planned for years. DLUHC will work rapidly with industry and regulators over the summer to design transitional arrangements with the aim of securing the viability of projects which are already underway, avoiding delays where there are other more appropriate mitigations.
  
  
• Opening the Cladding Safety Scheme to all eligible buildings, ensuring that no leaseholder will be out of pocket to fix dangerous cladding in medium or high-rise buildings.

Annex

The development of a new quarter in Cambridge will have substantial infrastructure requirements, including water, power, transport, affordable housing, environmental and social infrastructure. Permitting such a development will also result in substantial increases in land values above the existing use value of the land.

Government viability guidance sets out that when undertaking a viability appraisal, the value allowed for the purchase of land should in general be based on the value of the land in its existing use, plus an appropriate premium for the landowner. The government intends to explore recommendations about what a reasonable premium to agricultural landowners should be.

Building on this approach, the government intends that a consultation will be undertaken to inform the policy on a reasonable premium for landowners above existing use value, to support the development of plans for the new quarter. To the extent that infrastructure and affordable housing need justifies this position, the government anticipates that policy will be set to capture land value uplift above the premium. This will enable landowners to receive fair compensation for their land while minimising the public sector investment required to bring the development forward.

 

Policy Failure

One new housing minister every year since 2010

The 'housing minister merry-go-round' contributes to the failure of a housing policy.

Grant Shapps, 13 May 2010 – 4 September 2012
Mark Prisk, 4 September 2012 – 7 October 2013
Kris Hopkins, 7 October 2013 – 15 July 2014
Brandon Lewis, 15 July 2014 – 16 July 2016
Gavin Barwell, 17 July 2016 – 9 June 2017
Alok Sharma, 14 June 2017 – 9 January 2018 
Dominic Raab, 9 January 2018 – 9 July 2018
Kit Malthouse, 9 July 2018 – 24 July 2019
Esther McVey, 24 July 2019 - 13 February 2020
Chris Pincher, 13 February 2020 – 8 February 2022
Stuart Andrew: February 2022 to July 2022
Then we have...

• Marcus Jones (2 months)
• Lee Rowley (7 weeks)
• Lucy Frazer (3 months)
• Rachel Maclean Feb' 2023

Note: 

 

 

Siren Voices

 

Voices calling for a massive social house building programme are overlooking the behaviour of local authorities, who don't want more social housing.

You don't have to go to Kensington and Chelsea for evidence, try Cornwall, where many influential voices are against social housing because they fear that the tone will be lowered by 'problem' families arriving from Kensington and Chelsea. In Cornwall house prices are high, wages are low and they prefer to keep their local housing problems hidden.

 

Help To Buy Report

 

National Audit Office produced a new report on the Help To Buy scheme. The Report tells us that the scheme has helped first time buyers but most of those using the scheme could afford to buy without government help. The Report says house builders profits have been significantly enhanced by the scheme and that a bubble has been created by the scheme. The scheme will be phased out by 2023 and the government will get its money back by then. If the housing market takes a downturn and negative equity returns, the tax payer will take a massive bath.

 

UP

Leaseholds will not be abolished by government this year (2023)

The leasehold system will not be abolished in England and Wales this year, despite Housing Secretary Michael Gove previously promising to scrap it.
Mr Gove has described the system - where the owner of a property pays maintenance charges and often ground rent - as unfair and outdated.

The government, under Sunak, have no date for abolishing the system. They have now promised some sticking plaster reforms. Around 20% of homes in England are leasehold properties, many of them flats in cities.

Last year, the government abolished ground rents for most new residential leasehold properties in England and Wales, but only for new leases granted after June 2022.

Labour has pledged to end the sale of new private leasehold houses and introduce a system to replace private leasehold flats with commonhold.