Category Archives: Developers/ Development
Grenfell Tower resident blogged that fire would be result of council’s deliberate neglect – local media refused to take up the story
Local media knew about this for YEARS but refused to take it up or investigate, leaving a lone Grenfell Tower blogger to document the unfolding disaster. One so-called “local” journalist was actually filing copy from Dorset!
“[Edward] Daffarn [a social worker who had lived in Grenfell Tower for 15 years] is understandably emotional when reflecting on the last few months, but more than that he is angry. Angry with the way he feels Grenfell residents were treated by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation – the people who were entrusted to maintain the estate and keep its residents safe. Angry with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council, which was meant to scrutinise the KCTMO. Angry with a society which didn’t seem to care about people like him – people who live on housing estates – until it was too late.
“The reality is if you’re on a housing estate it’s indifference and neglect, two words that sum up everything about the way we were treated,” he says. “They weren’t interested in providing housing services, keeping us safe, maintaining the estate. They were just interested in themselves.”
It wasn’t for us to tell the council what they should be doing we were just trying to raise an alarm.
Edward Daffarn, Grenfell Action Group blog
Daffarn and fellow Grenfell resident Francis O’Connor had been blogging on behalf of the Grenfell Action Group since 2012. They wrote about issues that concerned their tight-knit community – air pollution, the closure of the local public library, and their fears that corners were being cut during the refurbishment of the tower.
“We wanted to record for history how a community on a housing estate in the fifth richest country in the world could be ignored, neglected, treated with indifference. We never thought we could make change. We just wanted to record what was happening,” he says.
Daffarn and O’Connor shared a theory that Kensington and Chelsea – a London borough more widely known for its museums, designer shops and flower shows – actually wanted its council estates to go into decline, so that the residents would leave and expensive flats could be built in this sought-after location. For this they were described as fantasists.
“We weren’t fantasists,” he says, visibly hurt. “We were trying to raise genuine concerns about how our community was being run down.”
The natural consequence, he concluded, would be loss of life. Which is why on 20 November 2016, frustrated and desperate, Edward wrote the blog post KCTMO – Playing with fire!
“It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord.”
A few months earlier a fire had ripped through five floors of a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush, just down the road. Edward was worried that if a fire broke out in his tower block residents wouldn’t know what to do. They had been given no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. There were no instructions on individual floors on how residents should act in the event of a fire, there was only a recent newsletter saying residents should remain in their flats – advice which in the case of the Shepherd’s Bush fire would have led to fatalities.
There’s a lot of abusive behaviour evidenced forensically about what was happening to our community, but it wasn’t sexy so it never got picked up.
In March 2017 the KCTMO installed fire safety instruction notices in the entrance hallway to Grenfell Tower and outside the lifts on every floor of the building, again urging residents to “stay put” unless the fire was “in or affecting your flat”.
It wasn’t the first time the Grenfell blog’s authors had raised concerns about fire safety.
Before the blog began, when a school was built on the only green space the residents had, they wrote to the borough pointing out that access for fire and emergency vehicles had been compromised.
Later they blogged about the blocking of a fire exit with mattresses during the refurbishment and the power surges in 2013 that manifested in flickering lights, computers and stereos blowing up, and entire rooms filling with smoke. These continued for three weeks, Daffarn says.
“We were tenants we weren’t fire safety specialists but we were switched on enough to feel this was important and it was not being dealt with on our estate and that’s why we were blogging. It wasn’t for us to tell the council what they should be doing., We were just trying to raise an alarm.”
An alarm that went unanswered. The November 2016 blog post represented the last moment at which something might have been done to avert the disaster which followed six months later. But why didn’t anyone heed or investigate Daffarn’s claims?
Hidden within the story of the Grenfell blog is another story of the decline of local media. There simply was no local press on the ground in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea scrutinising the authorities and helping to amplify the voice of people like Edward Daffarn.
The last time he had the attention of a local journalist was in 2014 when Camilla Horrox, the reporter for the Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle ran front page stories about Grenfell residents’ concerns regarding the possible presence of asbestos on the site of the new school and about the power surges.
She had met Daffarn several times, and had been concerned about KCTMO’s dealings with the residents of the properties it managed.
But when the newspaper was closed down later that year Horrox was made redundant and all her Grenfell articles disappeared from the web. The Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle was incorporated into a website that reports on 29 west London districts.
Horrox’s replacement was expected to report on three boroughs – Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham – while based in Surrey, an hour’s drive away.
Some residents of the borough might have been under the mistaken impression that they did have a local newspaper. In 2015 a free paper, The Kensington and Chelsea News, was established to fill the gap left by the closing of the Chronicle.
But when I tracked down its reporter he explained that he was the sole reporter working on the paper, and on two other local newspapers – his salary was £500 a week and he did almost all his reporting from home in Dorset, 150 miles away. He made it to the borough only twice in two-and-a-half years, and the one story he ever published about Grenfell was from a council press release about the installation of the new cladding.
Though he always searched for a “good front page splash” for each of the three editions, he also made sure to find two pages of royal stories and two pages of entertainment stories.
Edward Daffarn didn’t take his concerns to the media in November 2016 because he no longer thought anyone would listen. But the blog was out there for everyone to see, he points out, if only they had been looking.
“We’d been blogging for three or four years and you go back over that time there’s a lot of abusive behaviour evidenced forensically about what was happening to our community, but it wasn’t sexy so it never got picked up.”
For Edward, what was going on at Grenfell wasn’t just a local story, but a national one. A story about invisible people in a society that cared more about celebrity and wealth than its most vulnerable residents.
Close to tears, he admonishes the nation’s journalists.
“If you look back now our whole community of North Kensington, the policy that the local authority was taking every public space and privatising it, that that could be missed by the BBC, by Channel Four, by these wider news agencies… The question should be for you, why did you miss it?
“Why aren’t our lives important enough for you?”
“Housing policy risks ‘sting in the tail’ as new HRA freedoms combine with Right to Buy pilot”
“Councils received mixed messages on housing in the 2017 budget – with borrowing freedoms to help build more homes accompanied by a renewed threat of forced sales.
There was a cautious welcome for the chancellor Philip Hammond’s announcement that the government will increase the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap for a limited number of councils.
However, there was concern that the government is pushing ahead with a pilot to test the idea of forcing councils to sell high value homes to fund an extension of Right to Buy (RTB) to housing association tenants….
… Paul Dossett, head of local government at accountancy firm Grant Thornton, said: “It looks like a very small pot in total when compared to other housing initiatives announced in the budget and in other recent government announcements.”
He also called on the government to clarify what the government meant by areas of high affordability pressure.
“In our view the cap should be lifted for all housing authorities so they can plan holistically across the country to build the social housing that we need,” he said. …
… The chancellor also announced plans to press ahead with a £200m pilot extending the Right to Buy for housing association tenants in the Midlands.
Councils had hoped that the idea, along with many housing policy initiatives from former chancellor George Osborne, had been shelved after a scheduled pilot scheme failed to materialise.
But documents released alongside the budget by the Office for Budget Responsibility, said: “A small pilot scheme was due to run from January to May 2016 but was delayed to July due to the process of applications taking longer than expected and there being a longer lag between issuing instructions to solicitors and completions being achieved.
“A larger pilot was announced in Autumn Statement 2016 and was due to begin in April 2017. This did not take place. It has instead been replaced by a new pilot announced at this budget, due to run for one year from July 2018.”
“Tory stamp duty cut could cost first-time buyers twice as much as they save, leading think tank says”
“… Because this is a permanent reduction in stamp duty for first-time buyers, it will actually increase the price of properties by twice the size of the tax cut,” the think tank said. “As such prospective first-time buyers’ net costs will actually increase not decrease.
“In reality, a first-time buyer purchasing an average priced property would experience a £3,200 price increase to offset the £1,600 tax cut.”
Those buying cheaper properties, however, are likely to save more in stamp duty than the extra they have to pay in inflated house prices, it added. The stamp duty cut also means that more of a buyer’s savings can go towards a deposit, enabling more to afford a home.” …
EDDC has difficulty explaining the difference between a gift and a loan
“… It follows a council document from 2015 about the Queen’s Drive development that says: “The people of Exmouth are being offered a gift of a new Watersports Centre that will operate as a community interest company (not a private facility) whereby a philanthropist is investing up to £4m of his own money in this national venue.”
But a council spokesman said that the debate is about what constituents a gift and that once the original investment without interest is recovered all income generated will be reinvested in Exmouth.
Save Exmouth Seafront spokesman Nick Hookway said: “We have a number of concerns about the arrangements that East Devon District Council has made with Grenadier.
“Grenadier is not gifting the Water Sports centre site to the people of Exmouth. Information supplied by both the developer and the Council shows that the cost of the project will initially be paid for by Grenadier. The whole cost of this development will then be paid back to Grenadier over a number of years with no interest except for the cost of inflation. Inflation is running at 3.9% as measured by the Retail Price Index. Wouldn’t it be nice if residents could get 3.9% on their savings accounts?
“In most people’s minds Grenadier is a making a loan not a gift. Why are Councillors unable to see this?”
But a council spokesman said: “Grenadier is investing £3m to £4m upfront in providing a water sports centre and we have seen the attractive plans that will enhance Exmouth’s seafront and attraction to visitors and residents.
“The developer is involved on a not for profit basis with a business model that involves recovery of their original investment (without interest). The water sports centre and associated facilities will then be operated by a non-profit making Community Interest Company. Income generated from that point on will be used to reinvest in Exmouth by the Community Interest Company.
“There seems to be some debate about what constitutes a ‘gift’. To be clear, the cost of building the asset will be paid upfront by Grenadier and this will be paid back to Grenadier by the CIC without interest using income derived from the operation of the facility.
“The specifics and priorities of that re-investment will be something that the Community Interest Company will decide and it will have local representation on the board. This varies considerably from the standard investment model that commercial developers would usually follow and, in fact, Grenadier has chosen not to make a profit on this project when they could have directed their funds elsewhere into a profit making venture as would normally be the case for a private developer.”
Questions were also raised by SES as to who exactly is behind the realignment of Queen’s Drive that will see the road move from its current position on the seafront to behind the proposed new watersports centre.
Mr Hookway said: “Why is the road being moved and who suggested this realignment? Grenadier has stated the realignment of the road was not something that they asked for. East Devon District Council will say that it was included in the Exmouth Masterplan which was adopted in 2011.
“However there was no explanation in the Masterplan for the proposed realignment, indeed recent changes to the design of the road are different from those proposed in the Masterplan. Save Exmouth Seafront wants to know why the road is being moved and who proposed these changes.”
But in response, the council spokesman said: “The road and car park move was recommended in the original masterplan and made a lot of sense in creating a new, accessible and safer space connected directly to the beach.
“There is no confusion here since the council marketed the site on that basis and Grenadier bid on the clear understanding that the road and car park were being moved. This was a council decision following the recommendation of the masterplan.”
Save Exmouth Seafront in response to the plans say that they would like the main buildings to be moved back eight metres from the current proposed location, is it necessary for it to be two storeys, and will there be a clearly displayed safety plan for kite surfers, but did say the consultation process funded by Grenadier was a most welcome change from the usual process of planning consultations.
A spokesman for Grenadier added: “We are currently reviewing all feedback received during the community consultation process. All comments are receiving our full attention and we will provide an update once we have completed our review. In the meantime we encourage the community to check back regularly at http://watersportscentreexmouth.co.uk/ for any updates.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/public-havent-been-misled-over-822186
“Budget 2017: Hammond’s Stamp Duty Cut Backfires As Watchdog Warns It Will Push Up House Prices”
“No new homes guaranteed either despite £44bn claim.
Philip Hammond’s Budget bid to woo younger voters with stamp duty cuts unravelled within minutes after the UK’s economic watchdog warned the move would push up house prices.
The Chancellor was cheered by Tory MPs as he unveiled a surprise move to scrap stamp duty for first time buyers of homes worth less than £300,000 and Treasury officials claimed it would save a million people an average of £1,600.
But the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) demolished the policy, declaring it would lead to a spike in house prices – and may only result in just 3,500 more people buying a home than otherwise.
Hammond’s wider claim to be spending £44bn on housing also came under fire as it emerged the actual new money was £15bn and not a single new home would be built as a direct result of the measures unveiled on Wednesday.
After the summer’s snap election disaster and weeks of Cabinet resignations and Brexit rows, Hammond tried to reconnect with voters with a £25bn spending package aimed at the cost of living, NHS underfunding and the housing crisis.
But his hopes of a political recovery were knocked back as:
* A new pledge of £3.7bn for Brexit preparations outstripped the £2.8bn promised in day-to-day spending for the NHS
* Growth forecasts were slashed, with claims that weaker pay will lower household income by £540 by 2023 and the national minimum wage going up slower than planned
* A promised pay rise for nurses was unspecific and delayed, with no other public sector workers given an penny extra
* Universal Credit wait times were cut by a week but not down to the month demanded by critics, with no halt in its roll-out nationwide
* Fast-tracked plans to sell off state shares in RBS bank to raise £15bn were described as “desperate”
Jeremy Corbyn attacked the Budget’s failure to provide the radical policies Britain needs and seized on the housing measures as more spin than substance.
“The government promised 200,000 starter homes three years ago and not a single one has been built. We need a large-scale public housebuilding programme, not this government’s accounting tricks and empty promises.”
The stamp duty change – which kicks in from midnight on Tuesday – won cheers from Tory MPs as it was the “rabbit in the hat” plucked out by Hammond to end his Budget speech with a final flourish.
Yet the OBR was swift with a savage take-down of the plan and the Resolution Foundation claimed that “it would be literally cheaper” to buy the tiny number of winners a house each.
In a withering verdict, the OBR said: “The main gainers from the policy are people who already own property, not the first time buyers themselves… It is also possible that non-first time buyers will abuse the relief.”
The stamp duty cut only applies to house sales over £120,000 and as a result won’t help many people outside the south east and in poorer parts of the country.
A Treasury spokesman insisted the stamp duty cut would make a difference to many. “We don’t think that £1,600 on average for a million people over the next five years is a small move at all,” he said.
The Treasury repeatedly refused to say if a single new home would be guaranteed as a result of the wider housing package, which includes loans and funds and incentives for developers rather than concrete spending for things like council homes.”
“Philip Hammond’s housebuilding company has sat on undeveloped housing plot for 7 years”
First, it should be noted that MANY of the Daily Telegraph’s readers are sitting in undeveloped housing plots!
and
Second, they don’t mention the company’s financial interest in nursing homes.
It’s a story they are pushing to attempt to get him out as he seems to be perceived as much too wimpy for the Telegraph on Brexit, but nevertheless it is a topical story, and throws up some interesting issues.
Naturally, Hammond says it is a blind trust so he’s not responsible for its decisions. However, companies have the option of behaving morally and responsibly, particularly if they are aware that their ultimate beneficial owner occupies a high-profile position where a possible potential conflict of interest will be magnified by the public gaze.
“A housebuilding business founded by Philip Hammond has been accused of sitting on an undeveloped plot of land which has been granted planning permission for four new homes.
Castlemead Limited, which was co-founded by the Chancellor in 1984, builds new homes and doctor’s surgeries.
It has been reported that Castlemead Group, which is majority-owned by the company, was granted permission to build four homes in north Wales in June 2010 on the condition work on the site would begin within five years.
However, The Times report that the site still remains undeveloped.
Mr Hammond resigned as a director of the company in 2010, but his sole entry in the most recent House of Commons’ MPs’ register makes reference to the fact that he is “a beneficiary of a trust which owns a controlling interest in Castlemead Ltd, a company engaged in construction, house building and property development”.
The revelation comes after Mr Hammond gave an interview with The Sunday Times this week, in which he hit out at house builders who are sitting on hundreds of thousands of undeveloped plots of land which have planning permission for new homes.
He said: “We are generating planning permissions at a record rate.“It’s builders banking land, it’s speculators hoarding land, it’s local authorities blocking development.”
Mr Hammond resigned as a director in 2010 and does not have any direct influence over the company’s activities.
A spokeswoman for Mr Hammond said: “Any shares in Castlemead are held in a trust. The chancellor has no direct influence or involvement and so is unable to comment.”
Castlemead did not respond to The Telegraph’s request for comment.”
“Fears of Exeter housing crisis as figures reveal population growth outstripping new homes”
And what starts in Exeter ripples immediately to East Devon – where the western side is now just another “Greater Exeter” suburb.
“Exeter would need to build houses more than twice as fast if it wanted to keep up with population growth.
The number of homes being built in the area actually dropped last year, the latest figures show – and housing is growing at a far slower
rate than the booming population.
… Government data reveals 450 homes were built in Exeter in 2016-17 – down from 651 the year before – bringing the total number of houses and flats to around 53,930.
That works out as a growth in Exeter housing of 0.84 per cent in the last year.
In comparison, the population of the area grew by nearly 2,500 people between mid-2015 and mid-2016 – the latest data available.
It means only one new home is being built for every six extra people in the area.
Population growth in Exeter is fuelled by both ‘natural’ factors – more births than deaths – as well as immigration from other parts of
the UK and abroad.
Thanks to this there are now nearly 130,000 people living in Exeter – a growth of 1.96 per cent in a single year.
It means the population in the area is growing more than twice as fast as homes are being built – one of the worst discrepancies seen in the
whole of England.
Across the country, rates of house building have actually overtaken total population growth in the last year, with the number of homes in
England increasing by more than 217,000 in 2016-17.
That brings the total number of dwellings in the country to around 24 million – up by 0.92 per cent on the year before. …”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/fears-exeter-housing-crisis-figures-811954
Housing: too many loopholes, too many abuses
A Sidmouth resident writes:
“The Prime Minister has said it is her a personal mission to mend our broken housing market and provide much-needed “affordable” housing, even though much of this is, for many, unaffordable.
We hope therefore that she will immediately address loopholes in the planning system that are regularly exploited by developers who avoid making a fair contribution to affordable housing, for example by claiming, after they have obtained planning permission, that such housing is financially unviable.
Developers who build retirement flats often claim these are “care Homes”, even though they provide no care themselves. In Sidmouth, for instance, PegasusLife is currently appealing a decision to refuse a multi-million pound development of 113 expensive retirement flats and exploiting an ambiguity in planning law as well as using a viability test to avoid paying an estimated £3 million towards affordable housing, housing money that cash-strapped Councils can ill afford to lose.
It is a myth that the country needs more houses: it doesn’t need more expensive houses, investment properties and second homes. What it needs are low-cost houses, houses for social rent and houses to buy within the reach of lower and average income earners.
Will Mrs May tighten up planning law to stamp out such abuses or are we to conclude that the private sector, as hitherto, cannot be trusted to provide low-cost and “affordable” homes?”
“One in seven councillors in English rental hotspots are landlords” – including Torbay
Freedom of Information request to EDDC anyone? To include councillors spouses and children, of course!
…“In Torbay, 39% of councillors own multiple properties, including one who has received more than £63,000 in housing benefit payments for tenants in the last two years.
Three Conservative councillors in the south coast authority, including the mayor, own a combined 68 residential properties. In Bournemouth, 15 of the 37 councillors hold multiple property interests; in Labour-controlled Leeds, 26 of the 99 councillors own more than one property in the city.
Councils have the power to regulate private landlords with licensing schemes that enforce minimum levels of safety and habitability, particularly in the poorest areas with large numbers of rental homes. None of these three authorities, which have the largest proportions of landlord councillors, have introduced such schemes.
“It is worrying that towns and cities with high numbers of private renters are governed by a disproportionately high number of landlords, especially if it makes councils less inclined to regulate the local rental market properly,” said Dan Wilson Craw, director of the pressure group Generation Rent.
He said landlord licensing could make a significant difference. For example, the London borough of Newham’s licensing scheme accounts for 70% of all housing prosecutions in the capital.
Landlord councillors insist there is no conflict of interest and say a lack of resources and a belief that the schemes are not the most effective form of regulation influence the decisions. Others have said licensing is under consideration. …
… Torbay council has admitted that the age and quality of the housing stock “means that it is poorly insulated, generally inefficient, which leads to poor living conditions and fuel poverty”. It has also said it may consider licensing landlords in certain areas to increase control over the quality of private sector homes, but has yet to do so.
Six of its councillors rent out 19 properties in two of the most deprived wards. James O’Dwyer, who sits on several council committees, is also a property manager and landlord, and eight of the 44 houses and flats in which he and his family have an interest are located in two wards – Tormohun and Roundham with Hyde – that are ranked in the bottom 10% of living environments in England, according to the government’s indices of deprivation.
Since 2015, O’Dwyer has received more than £63,000 in housing benefit payments for his tenants, according to figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.
O’Dwyer said budget cuts rather than the influence of councillor landlords was more likely to be the reason for the failure to introduce licensing schemes in his area.
“This lack of resources and the burden of bureaucracy is far more likely to be the cause of any stagnation of a licensing scheme than the Machiavellian cabal of landlords targeting Torbay,” he said.
O’Dwyer said he would support the right kind of scheme in Torbay and stressed that any conflicts of interest were dealt with under council rules.
His fellow councillor Ray Hill rents out five homes in Tormohun as part of a portfolio of 19 residential properties that he owns or leases. Hill said he and his wife were “responsible and attentive landlords”.
“All of the 19 flats owned by my wife and myself in Torquay and elsewhere are of a high standard, some furnished and some unfurnished,” he said.
A Torbay council spoke4sperson said the authority had invested in an enforcement team rather than licensing, which had resulted in prosecutions changing the behaviour of bad landlords.
“This has had an impact bay-wide rather than in a specific identified area,” they said.”
Housing: Hammond blames … well, it’s not clear
“… Hammond stated: “It is not acceptable to us [government] that so many fewer young Britons are able to own a home now than just 10 or 15 years ago. It is not acceptable to us that there are not enough properties to rent and that rents are sky high, and the answer is that we have to build more homes.” …”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/11/hammond-pledges-action-housebuilding
Conservatives have been in control of housebuilding since 2010 – seven of those “10-15 years” Hammond talks about.
One of the first acts of the coalition was to put the major housebuilders in charge of re-writing planning policies. Their wishes became law in the National Planning Policy Framework – which people dubbed a “Developers’ Charter’ – and that continues to be the policy.
They also created “Help to Buy” for houses up to £600,000 – effectively handing subsidies to those same developers.
“Theresa May to renew ‘personal mission’ to fix broken housing market”
Summary:
Rhubarb … rhubarb … build more houses … rhubarb … build a Britain long journey … fit for the future … robust action …
Oh, just read it for yourself … if you think it will make any difference … sticking plaster on an amputation …
“Beauty spots spoilt by rise in new homes”
“Scenic areas are being blighted by new housing, with the number of homes approved in protected landscapes doubling in five years, a study has found.
The Cotswolds and High Weald areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) are facing the greatest threat. Developers target the areas because new homes within them sell at a 30 per cent premium to homes outside.
The number of homes given planning permission in England’s 34 AONBs has risen by 82 per cent in five years, from 2,396 in 2012-13 to 4,369 in 2016-17, says research commissioned by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). Applications for 12,741 homes in AONBs are pending.
The CPRE said the threat was not just from new homes on greenfield sites but the conversion of existing farm buildings into what it described as “mega-houses” for the very wealthy, who install high fences, CCTV, warning signs and automatic gates. The report said: “These urbanising elements can reduce public enjoyment and make the countryside much less welcoming.”
The CPRE said developers were “exploiting poorly defined and conflicting national planning policy” in order to build in AONBs.
The government’s planning guidelines state that “great weight should be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty” in AONBs. This year’s Conservative manifesto vowed to build more homes but also to maintain the AONBs’ “existing strong protections”.
But guidelines state that major development can be permitted in the areas in “exceptional circumstances” and where it would be in the public interest. These terms are not clearly defined, creating loopholes for developers to exploit.
The CPRE said local councils were under pressure to find land for housing “irrespective of any constraints imposed by protected landscape policies”.
The report said there had been “a shift in the emphasis of planning practice from landscape protection to addressing the housing shortage”.
The CPRE urged the government to amend planning policy to include an explicit presumption against proposals for large housing developments in AONBs. It called for targets to be set in the long-promised 25-year environment plan to ensure that development did not damage landscape quality.
The Department for Communities and Local Government declined to respond directly to the CPRE’s recommendations.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
Inquiry: Housing for older people Communities and Local Government Committee
“The Communities and Local Government Committee is holding an inquiry on housing for older people. The Committee has set up this web forum to hear directly from older people about their experiences of moving home in later life. This will help us understand the challenges people face and help us to focus our inquiry on the key issues.
If you, or a family member, have recently moved home, are considering doing so, or have decided not to, we want to hear from you.
The web forum will be open until
Monday 27 November 2017.
If you would like to submit a comment but do not want it to be made public in this forum, please start your post with NOT FOR PUBLICATION.
Specifically, we are interested in your answers to any of following questions that apply to you:
Have you moved home recently or are you considering doing so?
If so, why?
Have you considered moving and then decided against it? What were the reasons for this?
Do you know where to obtain information and advice about moving? Have you ever sought this type of advice?
What are your experiences of obtaining finance to move?
Have you experience of adapting your home to make it more accessible?
How did you go about this and did you seek advice in doing so?
How do you feel your home affects your health and wellbeing?”
Have you experienced an improvement in your health and wellbeing as a result of moving?
…..”
“Overhaul stamp duty and build more bungalows to tackle housing crisis, says Treasury select committee chairman”
Are these people MAD?
Reduce stamp duty – keep developers in business.
Build expensive bungalows – keep developers in business.
BUILD MORE SOCIAL HOUSING – Benefit the “just about managing”
Any chance of this? Beggar all!
“Stamp Duty must be overhauled in next week’s Budget to help young people get on property ladder, the chairman of the influential Commons’ Treasury Select Committee has said.
Nicky Morgan, a former Tory Cabinet minister, also called for new measures to encourage developers to build more bungalows for pensioners to move into and free up larger family homes.
New research from the Taxpayers’ Alliance, seen by The Telegraph, also warns that – without reform – the tax will be paid by nine of 10 home owners by the time of the next general election in May 2022.
Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, is under pressure to cut stamp duty to encourage more pensioners in large homes to move out and free them up for younger families.
The news came amid reports that Mr Hammond was looking at easing stamp duty bills for first time buyers.
Speaking to the Resolution Foundation thinktank, Ms Morgan said that she supported reform of stamp to encourage home owners to downsize to smaller properties.
She said: “We have got to go back to building housing stock that people are going to move into in later life – in the Midlands there is a desperate shortage of bungalows and suitable accommodation for older people.”
“Right to buy is doomed unless we get more power, say councils”
Councils are warning that only one in every three homes being sold under the right-to-buy scheme is being replaced, as strict government rules add to the housing crisis.
Local authorities say that the right-to-buy scheme is under threat if they are not given the financial powers to build more council houses and replace homes that are sold. The LGA is calling on the Government to use the Budget later this month to allow councils to retain 100 per cent of right-to-buy receipts and have more freedom to borrow to invest. They also want flexibility to determine how they implement right-to-buy locally.
Cllr Martin Tett, the LGA’s Housing spokesman, said: “Families around the country desperately need more affordable homes and more routes into home-ownership. A model of Right to Buy that actually allows councils to build more homes would vastly increase the opportunities for these families. Current arrangements are restricting councils from being able to replace homes being sold under the scheme. The scheme will quickly become a thing of the past in England if councils continue to be prevented from building new homes and replacing those sold. If we are to stand a real chance of solving our housing shortage, councils need the funding and powers to replace any homes sold under right to buy quickly and reinvest in building more of the genuine affordable homes our communities desperately need.”
Source: Times p13 (pay wall)
“Number of pensioners living in rented homes may treble by 2035”
Of course, rich people will be able to afford flats in PegasusLife developments – with annual service charges higher than most people’s annual rents.
“Almost 1 million pensioners could be trapped in the private rented sector in 20 years, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation from rogue landlords, according to a renters’ rights campaign group.
There are 370,000 pensioner households currently paying rent to private landlords in the UK.
But campaigners expect that figure to almost treble to 995,000 by 2035-36 if housebuilding remains at current levels.
The Generation Rent campaign group has warned that these pensioners will be forced to rely on housing benefit to cover their rent, which will then pile pressure on the welfare budget.
New research from the lobby group also revealed that older renters are more likely to prefer secure tenancies with rent controls and tenancy guarantees.
Dan Wilson Craw, director of Generation Rent, said: “With most debates on housing focused on young adults, politicians risk neglecting the vast numbers of people who are already too old to get a mortgage and face a lifetime of renting.
“As they start retiring in greater numbers, the state will have to pick up the tab unless it makes some fundamental changes to the housing market.
“The answer is not further cuts to housing benefit, because that will only further immiserate people who have nowhere else to turn.
“Instead, we need years of investment in new homes to bring down rents and a transformation of the private rental market into a professional provider of long term homes.
“This means giving tenants protection from unfair evictions and putting a limit on rent rises.”
Local campaigner’s brilliant analysis of “development” in Devon
Georgina Allen is a local campaigner based in Totnes – suffering similar problems to East Devon. This has been published by the Campaign for Rural England (CPRE). For further information, see the South Devon Watch Facebook page
“The papers at the moment are full of grim warnings about the Green Belt. It is anticipated that seventy percent of new builds will be built within the Green Belt, very few of which are going to be affordable, none of which, I suspect are going to be well built or add anything to the landscape or to the lives of people who live there.
Our countryside is under threat is the general theme, but it is more than under threat, it is under attack. Already thousands of acres have been swallowed up by new mass developments. Little towns are consumed under the weight of great new estates, so often built without thought or reason other than to make money for distant shareholders.
This government has removed, as it loves to do, much of the restraint and red tape around the building industry. A few well placed lobbyists, the understanding that the ‘conservative’ part of the Conservative Party was on its way out and the housing plan was hatched. It’s all been very cleverly done.
The housing crisis was basically used as a smokescreen to hide the fact that the building industry was going to be used to prop up the economy. It’s a short term solution of course, not much of a solution at all really. It’s been used in so many other places and at the end fails, not until a lot of land has been ruined of course, but at least a few people make a lot of money.
We don’t have a shortage of homes, of course. What we have is a shortage of houses that people can actually buy. I was 35 when I bought my first house. The mortgage was three times that of my teacher’s salary. It was a stretch, but I coped and then, of course, house prices soared; my little house became a valuable asset and when I sold it, the price was above the reach of a similar teacher in my area.
This is the problem.
If the government actually wanted to solve the housing crisis, they would put money into social housing, control land value tax and limit the amount of housing that investors from overseas can buy. But of course they don’t. Osborne was caught on tape saying that he had no interest in social housing, – it only bred Labour supporters. At least that was honest. What isn’t honest is the way they’ve gone about building the myth of housing need to cover up the fact that they are lobbing enormous amounts of our money to the building industry.
I went to look at Canary Wharf recently. It’s still an impressive sight, all jostling, shiny towers, cranes everywhere, but a little investigation revealed that many of the new skyscrapers, the residential ones at least, are left empty. Investors come in right at the beginning, when the ink on the architectural drawings is still wet and buy the whole build, neglecting often to rent the new flats out – and why should they? If they are allowed to use our buildings as gold bricks, then it seems reasonable that they should keep the value of their investment high.
It makes sense to ensure that demand continues to outstrip supply and that the number of houses available to the public is limited. Thousands of new-builds are breaking the skyline in East London and yet this huge amount of building is yet to bring prices down. People move out of the centre because they can’t afford to live there and migrate to the outskirts, the outskirts get more expensive, so they move further out, dislodging the inhabitants there, who are moved even further out and so on and so on, the ripples continuing across the country. Our major cities are hollowed out and people live in areas they don’t necessarily want to be in, finding themselves dependent on their cars and transport to get them back to the place where they have a job.
By the time the ripples get to Devon, they’ve changed slightly.
These ripples are the people who have decided they no longer need to commute to the city. They discover they can buy two houses in Devon for the price of their one in the South East and realise that they can fund their retirement/break through a buy-to-let. This has been the pattern of movement around us in South Devon recently.
The new-builds, which were of course spun to seem as if they would solve our local housing issues, have often gone to people moving into the area. These builds come with all sorts of assurances as to improvements in infrastructure – anything over 14 houses is supposed to trigger money for healthcare, transport, leisure, – all sorts of things are promised. Local councillors talk grandly of new parks, new hospitals, but of course that doesn’t feed into the ultimate aim of all this building, which is to make money, so the government has cleverly inserted all sorts of get-out-of-jail free cards, which the developers are only too happy to take on.
Viability studies are the worst of these.
S106 monies are promised before the build at planning stage. The local council pauses, – they know that this new build on the edge of AONB will severely impact local roads, local services, destroy a farmer’s land, restrict access to a town, but they might well run the risk of being sued if they say no and at least afterwards they can point to all the lovely benefits – all that money coming in to improve the swimming pool, health care etc.
Planning permission is granted, work starts, ancient hedges are ripped up, protected trees are undermined, the wildlife disappears. Then a viability study is done. Ah, it appears that we won’t make enough profit if we build more than 10% of these houses as affordable, so here are our new plans. Also, sorry, but we have no money for S106s, as it proved a little more expensive than we realised to flatten this hill, so that money has gone too.
The council, hamstrung by the more than 40% overall cut to its budget and short of legal expertise and planners, has to agree. For example, we’re getting 1,200 houses around our little town of 8,000 and are yet to see the great improvements, any improvements in fact to our town’s infrastructure. There’s a need for housing we keep getting told. There’s a need for actual affordable housing and improvements to roads, we reply and are greeted by silence.
But the worst spin of all is the calculation of need. We need houses and to deny this is selfish and this is said across the political spectrum. So how is local need calculated?
Here in Devon, during devolution at least; local need was worked out by a group called the Local Enterprise Partnership, the LEP. These groups have evolved out of the old rural business development model and are in place across the country. Their primary role is to support business and investment in their region. and they are paid vast sums of money by the government to invest locally. So far, so good.
Just a quick look at their board. Our one at least seems to be made up almost entirely of property developers, arms manufacturers and the CEOs of major construction companies; almost all of the construction companies at work in the South West seem to be represented. Their conflict of interest declarations cover many pages. So these are the people who came up with the figures of housing need. The fact that they could benefit personally from having high figures here, does not seem to have been challenged in any meaningful way.
How did they come by the figures? They do not need to say, they are not an accountable organisation and the calculations behind these figures are not accessible to the general populace. There are three or so councillors on the board [our own Paul Diviani is one and he’s responsible for housing!]; they represent the democratic will of the people, the rest of their work is none of your business. The LEPs are not democratically elected, their meetings are held in secret, their minutes are concealed, their work is surrounded in mystery and yet they spend our money. They are funded with public money.
The audit office has criticised them, our councillors have criticised them, everyone does, but they are the creation of government and can take the criticism. The people on the board benefit directly from much of the building they do with the public purse. Their companies build the roads that lead to the new developments, their companies finance the new developments, their companies profit from the new business parks set up around the new developments. The conflicts of interest are so huge they seem to be forgotten about.
Newton Abbot is a case in point. Despite the fact that the population of Newton Abbot has hardly grown at all in the last five years, it was calculated by the LEP that the town housing stock would need to double in the next ten years.
I asked the head of Teignbridge planning – Why? The answer – Housing need. How was this calculated? Ah well, its a very complex process, which I personally do not fully understand. Ok, can you point me in the direction of someone who can explain? No. And that’s the typical response you get for any of this type of questioning.
The LEP was given a multi-million growth fund payment from the government. It’s widely understood by local councillors here that the 40% cut to council budgets has reappeared as payments to the LEP. Our council’s money has in part gone into financing a group we have no say over. £46 million of the growth fund money is going into the Newton Abbot expansion, despite the rejection of this plan by local residents. The money is going into widening the roads and building further access. Who is building the roads? Galliford Try. The CEO of Galliford Try is on the board of the LEP. Who made the decision to spend this money in Newton Abbot? The LEP. Who gave planning permission for this huge expansion into the green belt around Newton Abbot? The leader of the council led the decision. The leader of the council is on the board of the LEP.
I am not of course, saying that this is corrupt. It is not illegal, – it is happening the way it was intended by central government. These are the sweeteners to keep the building going. The government can say they’ve built new houses, – they point to these spurious housing need figures. The building industry is delighted of course, – they can build cut-price housing in the most desirable areas for the greatest returns. Local councils have been so starved of cash that the promise of new homes bonuses keep them pliable and if they complain, if doesn’t matter, they have no money to mount any type of challenge to development anyway.
The building trade and certain powerful councillors have formed alliances through the LEP, where they all profit through the public purse and can talk happily of growth and building. The only people left out of this equation are the people who actually need houses, local people, who are completely sidelined and ignored. Their wishes and needs are irrelevant.
The biggest loser though, of course, is our countryside, our most valuable resource. In survey after survey, the British people cite the NHS and the countryside as the most precious and valuable assets we have. Our countryside is invaluable really and to see it treated the way it is at the moment, for the profit of shareholders and government is sickening.”
Source: CPRE magazine
“Fewer social homes being built than at any time since Second World War, official figures reveal”
The article says the Government is concentrating on “affordable homes”. Affordability is calculated at offering a discount of 20% on the average price of other houses on a development. So, if the development has an average cost of £300,000 an affordable home (smaller and usually sited at the least attractive part of a development) would be £240,000. There is no such thing as a private “affordable rent”.
Social housing is built and controlled by councils or housing associations and rents are lower than in the private sector.
“Fewer social homes are being built than at any time since the Second World War, new official figures have revealed.
Government data shows just 5,380 new social homes were completed across England last year – down from 6,800 the previous year.
The number has plummeted from 39,560 in 2010/11 – the year the Conservatives came to power. …
… Responding to the latest figures, Labour said immediate action was needed. John Healey MP, the party’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, said: “After the Grenfell Tower fire Theresa May admitted the Conservatives haven’t given enough attention to social housing. These shocking figures show she was right.
“The number of new social rented homes being built is now at the lowest level on record, and the number of new low-cost homes to buy is at just half the level it was under Labour. After seven years of failure on housing the Chancellor must use the Budget to tackle the housing crisis.”
Housing and Planning Minister Alok Sharma said: “These latest figures show progress but we know there is more to do. That’s why we have increased the affordable homes budget to more than £9bn and introduced a wider range of measures to boost building more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people.”
Claire Wright: “Director of Ladram Bay Holiday Park attempts intimidation at public meeting”
Carter family (Ladram Bay, Greendale Business Park and other businesses) prefer absent Hugo Swire MP to present DCC councillor Claire Wright. Surprise, surprise!
“A director of Ladram Bay Holiday Park ordered me to be silent and leave a public meeting last night, which was called to discuss traffic concerns associated with his business.
The meeting, which was held in the restaurant of Ladram Bay, was arranged at the behest of myself and Otterton Parish Council, following widespread concern over the level of traffic and size of vehicles travelling to and from the caravan park.
It was attended by around 70 Otterton residents, who were largely exasperated and angry about the problems caused by the continually expanding caravan park.
At the end of the meeting I outlined three key concerns that I had heard in the meeting, in order to seek assurances from the management team. They were on:
• frequent use of retrospective planning applications
• continual expansion (a huge increase in the number of lodges and caravans)
• level of traffic and size of vehicles travelling to and from the park and funding potential mitigating road improvements
But before I could get more than a sentence out, Robin Carter approached me and asked me to stop talking. He added that I wasn’t welcome and that I should leave.
His co-director, Zoe House, added that the members of the public were there at their invitation (I had just mentioned my letter that was delivered to every house in the village).
The room sort of erupted at this point and there were shouts of:
“Let her speak!” “She’s our representative!” “Leave her alone!”
Robin Carter, whose family also own the controversial Greendale Business Park at Woodbury Salterton, told residents that I wasn’t their representative. Hugo Swire was. He added that I was not going to “canvass for votes” on their property.
I replied that I was Otterton’s Devon County Councillor and was entitled to speak at a public meeting.
I said I would like to finish my points. But after almost every sentence, Mr Carter interjected with similar remarks – and to more shouting from outraged residents.
One of my points was that if highways officers identified any road improvements whether Ladram Bay might consider contributing funding. Seeing as Robin Carter was standing right in front of me, I directed this question at him.
He then moved so close it felt as though he was actually squaring up to me. Someone called out: “That’s intimidation!” I asked him to move back, which he did but only slightly. He glared angrily and carried on addressing me in a low menacing voice.
Mr Carter said that if I had these points to make I should raise them in a private meeting, not in public and that I should hurry up and finish what I was saying.
I replied that I had already attended a private meeting with his co-director, Zoe House and the parish council in August. That many of these points were already made and surely now was the time, with residents present, to provide these assurances.
Cue further glaring and, no answers.
Many residents came up to me afterwards to thank me for standing up for them, and to Mr Carter.
***************************
The meeting started with a PR video set to music, which struck me as entirely the wrong note. It was the sort of video that would have been more appropriate for investors. Then the Ladram representatives read out a list of accolades awarded to the company.
Management team Steven Harper-Smith and Will Tottle who ran the presentation and fielded questions seemed out of their depth at times and as a new member of staff, Mr Harper-Smith was unaware of the continual retrospective planning applications.
People complained they couldn’t hear. It wasn’t helped by the loud thumping music coming from downstairs, which I asked to be turned down. It wasn’t.
Some of the management team’s points, such as the new £10 fee (increased from £5) for parking on site, which they claimed reduced congestion in the village and was “not a money making scheme” was met with understandable derision. How can this improve traffic and parking in the village?!
They said that their letters to visitors included a line about driving carefully through the village. That this was “a journey” and the start of a positive relationship with the parish council.
A traffic survey carried out in August by a group associated with the parish council found that around 35 per cent of traffic travelling through Otterton is generated by Ladram Bay. Another survey is imminent.
The incredible claim by the management team that traffic hadn’t increased much over the years and that all roads were busier, was met with loud and understandable frustration. The park has expanded massively over the years, with hundreds of pitches – and the traffic has increased with it!
I should add here that on my visits to Otterton I have observed a genuine and real problem with the level of traffic on the road and the absolutely enormous caravans and lodges that make their way through the village and residents tell me, knock walls down, erode banks and damage trees and hedges.
There was acknowledgement of this damage and a promise to repair it. How further damage is prevented is another issue, when the road is simply too narrow for the size of the loads.
Someone asked for a commitment for a maximum number of lodges so the village could have peace of mind on further development. This was supported by clapping.
The management team did not commit to this.
Someone else suggested that the lodges should be brought in by barge instead.
One resident said the number of cars increasing in the village was not related to Ladram Bay. It was due to people having more cars. It was clear that this view was not shared by the vast majority of residents.
Someone else described the traffic situation as “horrendous.”
Then the thorny subject of planning was raised. Ladram Bay is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in a coastal preservation zone. The landscape is highly protected under a number of strong policies. Yet planning consent keeps being given for expansion. And many of these planning applications are submitted after the building has taken place.
One resident spoke on this in a very informed way about this. He asked why the dog walking area was now a car park and said there was no point in objecting to the planning application as the trees had already been removed. The team were vague on this but the new general manager did say that in future what they did would comply with planning consent.
Parish council chairman, John Fudge told the meeting that the parish council had objected to the application but it was approved by East Devon District Council’s planning committee.
This started a bit of a debate in the room and how people are not notified about planning applications. And why there is one rule for them and another for Ladram Bay.
An attendee asked the Ladram Bay owners to liaise with the village and said that the park should “have the decency to talk to the village” over planning applications and it was no surprise that there was “distrust and a complete lack of confidence” in the business by residents.
A resident of Ladram Road said she had been hit twice by vehicles and there needed to be speed deterrents. The management team agreed.
A resident of Fore Street said that she takes her life in her hands every time she leaves her house and that traffic is travelling too fast.
Someone replied that community speedwatch found few cars travelling over 30mph but that was too fast anyway. That the village needed a 20mph zone.
(This is something I have been investigating and will continue to do so).
John Fudge, parish council chairman spoke at the end of the meeting to thank people for coming. He said the parish council would work with Ladram Bay to improve the situation. He said he believed there was a genuine desire on the part of the caravan park to improve things.
Directors, Robin Carter and Zoe House remained silent throughout the meeting. Until I spoke at the end.
What do I think of Robin Carter’s behaviour? I think it was aggressive and an (unsuccessful) attempt at intimidation. It was totally inappropriate and completely unnecessary. I am a key representative of Otterton people and I am entitled to attend and speak at a public meeting.
A thriving business on the edge of Otterton is a positive thing. Otterton Mill is also a successful local business. Yet I haven’t heard a single complaint about Otterton Mill. All the complaints I have heard have been about the attitude of the senior management team at Ladram Bay, their lack of consideration and the effect that their continual expansion plans have on the village.
I am hoping that this will be the start of a more positive and considerate relationship between residents and Ladram Bay. Local people deserve better.”
East Devon Watch 