The overwhelming majority of voters are not confident that the government can successfully tackle and reduce crime, according to a new poll which suggests that a crippling lack of trust is damaging Rishi Sunak’s attempts to revive Tory fortunes.

Michael Savage www.theguardian.com 

Both main parties have been prioritising pledges to tackle low-level crime and antisocial behaviour ahead of local elections in May. However, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer revealed that only 20% of voters have confidence in the government to successfully tackle and reduce crime, while 71% are not confident. Only 27% have confidence in the courts and justice system to reduce crime and only 31% have confidence in the police to tackle and reduce crime.

The poll found that Labour continues to lead on crime, with 30% trusting a government led by Keir Starmer over a Tory government led by Sunak. However, the pollster found that Labour leads on most issues, so its six-point advantage on crime makes it one of the closer issues. Crime is currently the sixth most important issue, behind health, the economy, energy, immigration and housing.

It comes after the government announced plans to force offenders guilty of crimes such as vandalism to wear jumpsuits or hi-vis jackets and start repairing the damage they caused within two days of receiving their punishment. The “immediate justice” plans were part of an antisocial behaviour strategy.

However, a serious loss of trust appears to have become a significant electoral barrier to a Conservative revival. Among those who backed the Tories at the last election who no longer plan to vote Conservative, 52% say the main reason is that they have lost trust in the party – significantly larger than any other answer. Another 16% say a key reason is that they are running the country poorly.

Similarly, among the smaller group who have directly switched from the Conservatives to Labour, 48% say they have done so because they trust Labour more than the Conservatives.

The polling found that antisocial behaviour came sixth in the list of crimes the public want the UK government to prioritise. Although 55% think the possession of nitrous oxide should be illegal – a move the government has backed – 56% think that a ban will not succeed in reducing antisocial behaviour in public.

“Generally, Labour are ahead on vote share because of the cost of living situation and an absolute cratering of trust in the Conservative party,” said Adam Drummond, associate director at Opinium. “This means that, even though the public’s instincts on tackling crime line up more with what they think the Tories want than what they think Labour would do, the government is struggling to get traction because voters don’t believe they are capable of improving things.

The real legacy has been to massively inflate the market, swell housebuilders’ profits and leave many buyers in negative equity

This funding would be better spent on increasing housing supply” directly, through local authority and housing association building projects.

Surprise, surprise! – Owl

Phillip Inman www.theguardian.com 

George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme officially shuts this Friday [March 31], a little over a decade after the then chancellor launched it with the aim of revitalising what was a sluggish UK property market.

The scheme granted 375,654 interest-free equity loans for the purchase of new-build properties, according to the latest figures which cover until the end of last September, with 84% of applicants first-time buyers. On average they borrowed £63,000, on a typical purchase price of £273,500, with a total value of £23.6bn lent out.

But what exactly did that enormous sum achieve? Osborne tweeted on Thursday that it had “helped hundreds of thousands of families buy their own home and supported thousands of construction jobs”. But experts argue the real legacy has been to massively inflate the market, swell housebuilders’ profits and leave many buyers in negative equity.

Ministers have argued the scheme has been vital in underpinning a resurgence of property construction in the UK, a view echoed by Home Builders Federation. It told the Lords’ built environment committee last year that schemes supporting home ownership had “led to a sustained period of record investment in land and labour for future housing delivery, therefore increasing supply”.

However, Rose Grayston, an independent housing analyst, argues it was only ever going to provide a short-term boost to housebuilding. “It was an effective way to support supply of new homes when it started. There was very little housebuilding and it encouraged developers to expand supply.

“But it was only really a gimmick that worked for the first group of buyers. They needed prices to rise from that moment on, pricing out more people in the queue for new homes.”

And in the way the scheme favoured the market for new over secondhand homes, she says it created a captive demand “for what in many periods over the last 10 years has been the building of shoddy flats that have lost value”.

Run by the quango Homes England, Help to Buy has taken various forms over the years, including one underwriting mortgages for secondhand properties which closed in 2016. The second equity loan scheme closed to new applicants at the end of October last year, with the scheme closure on Friday marking the deadline for them to complete their purchase, although those who have obtained an extension have a final cutoff of the end of May.

The equity loan is interest-free for five years to potential new-build purchasers, who since 2020 must also be first-time buyers, who can muster a 5% deposit of up to 40% of the purchase price in London and 20% outside the capital.

But many homebuyers have accused private developers of using the scheme to inflate the price of new flats, effectively pocketing the state subsidy for themselves.

A report in January last year by the Lords’ built environment committee found the loans inflated prices by more than their subsidy value in areas where it was needed the most, concluding that “this funding would be better spent on increasing housing supply” directly, through local authority and housing association building projects.

Toby Lloyd, a former No 10 adviser who, like Grayston, has worked for the housing charity Shelter, says it is unsurprising the initiative was popular with developers: “Why not? The government was offering them lots of money and they were more than happy to accept it.

“But it distorted the pattern of development, diverting away from the need to revive depressed town centres in favour of out of town developments on greenfield sites, increasing car use.”

Others who relied on Help to Buy to secure a new-build quickly found themselves in negative equity, with an investigation by consumer group Which? in 2020 finding one in seven homes bought under the scheme lost value despite booming local property markets, trapping homeowners in unsellable properties.

Lloyd and Grayston believe there is another group about to get whacked by Help to Buy, those people who banked on low interest rates and are now remortgaging their loans.

In their recent report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, they said: “Rising costs disproportionately impact particular groups of owners, such as those on low incomes, shared owners and those who have recently bought through Help to Buy, especially those using larger equity loans in London.

“The result will be more homeowners who find themselves struggling with their mortgage costs but are unable to move easily to a more affordable home.”

Lloyd believes it could amount to a huge cost to the government if a housing downturn forces thousands of homeowners to default on the loans, despite the Treasury, which takes a cut of any gains on Help to Buy homes, registering a £1.8bn paper profit so far, according to Homes England.

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), is concerned that the government’s housing strategy relied on a single policy for a decade.

“At the margin, it did help the delivery of new homes. But was it the best policy to deliver new homes across tenures, to reflect the need for housing beyond just home ownership? You might question if it alone was the right approach, or could it have been part of something more holistic.”

He disputes that the private sector can be relied on to satisfy the demand for housing. The number of completions for new home builds increased steadily from 130,000 in the year Help to Buy started to 219,000 in the financial year 2019-20. However, over the last year the number of new home starts has dived as the cost of living crisis and high interest rates have dented the appetite for taking on large mortgage loans.

“The private sector has an important part to play. But inevitably developers are going to respond to the economic changes we see at a macro level and that is going to influence their build-out rate,” Rubinsohn says.

“It means that without a huge injection [of funds] from central government, we are not going to see the building at scale we saw in the [1950s].”

Lloyd says that despite political pressure on ministers to launch a new version of Help to Buy ahead of the general election, there is no sign of one at the moment. “With a housing market downturn under way, the government needs to step up.”

United Utilities, which covers Liverpool and Manchester, caused 69,000 spills and had the site with the longest-lasting sewage spills in the country. The Plumbland treatment works in Cumbria had 339 spills over the equivalent of 287 days into the River Ellen, home to salmon, sea trout and eels.

On this measure SWW comes fourth worst with 38,000 spills in the league table of ten. Using the measure of duration of spills, SWW is second worst.

www.thetimes.co.uk (Extract)

Official figures published on Friday show the number of spills from overflows, designed to act as relief valves during heavy rainfall, fell by 19 per cent. They show that 91 per cent of overflows are monitored at present…..

…Matt Staniek, of the Save Windermere campaign, said: “United Utilities even discharges sewage into Lake Windermere. If sewage is going into Windermere, imagine what’s happening to your local river.”

The duration of United Utilities’ spills was 47 per cent higher than the second worst offender, South West Water, which racked up 290,271 hours.

The worst location for the number of spills was South West Water’s Warfleet Creek Pumping Station in Dartmouth, Devon. It discharged sewage 364 times into the River Dart, which runs off from Dartmoor.

An official at United Utilities said: “We know there is much more to be done. With the largest combined sewer network in the country and 28 per cent more rainfall in our region than the UK average, we have ambitious plans to deliver further improvements.”

John Halsall, chief operating officer at South West Water, said: “We are reducing the use of storm overflows. Our plan is working but there is more to do.”….

Struggling East Devon residents could benefit from a pot of more than £600,000 in government cash over the next year. 

eastdevonnews.co.uk

Members of the district council’s cabinet unanimously approved the authority accepting the funding at their March meeting, writes Local Democracy Reporter Rob Kershaw. 

The Household Support Fund (HSF) money must be spread out over the next 12 months.

HSF cash is distributed by councils in England to directly help those who needed it most to meet daily needs such as food, clothing and utilities. The scheme is now in its fourth round.

East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) allocation is a slice of £10million given to Devon County Council (DCC).

The funding is split into two phases; with the first £290,000 being given out between April and September. The rest will be distributed until the end of next March.

No-one needs to apply for the first half of the funding; EDDC will target the money at those who need it, while there is an application process in place for the second half of the coming financial year.

Officers are yet to finalise how many people will benefit from the Whitehall cash, or how much people can get.

Residents will be eligible for the support if they have at least one person in their household who is aged 16 and over, and do not have the resources to meet their short-term needs.

Mortgage support and help with debt will not be supported by the scheme.

EDDC finance portfolio holder Councillor Jack Rowland welcomed the additional help and said: “I think it speaks for itself.

“Again, it’s going to demonstrate that we’re helping those most in need within this district.”

Cllr Marianne Rixson was also pleased to see that residents will be able to receive extra financial support amid ‘very distressing times’ for many.

One in ten eligible East Devon households didn’t claim cost-of-living cash help