“A couple whose new home was repeatedly hit by flooding are to sue the previous owners, claiming that the problem was deliberately hidden from them before they bought the property. …””
https://www.moneywise.co.uk/home-mortgage/flooding-case-‘stark-warning-to-sellers-say-legal-experts
Though why Exmouth Journal thinks the A3052 site is “near Exmouth”, when at 8.3 miles away it’s actually closer to Woodbury (4.1 miles), Cranbrook (6.4 miles) and even Topsham (4.1 miles) is puzzling. It is, however, only 1 mile from Crealy Adventure Park …
Does the Local Plan allow for a hotel there?
“A new 33-bed hotel could be built in Clyst St Mary if a major planning application gets the go-ahead.
St Austell Brewery has entered a proposal to redesign the Cat and Fiddle Pub, in Clyst St Mary, and build a new two-storey hotel in the existing car park.
If given the go-ahead the pub and hotel would operate together with the pub being managed by the brewery to ‘maintain control’ of the whole site. …”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/new-33-bed-hotel-planned-clyst-st-mary-1-5226031
Seems counter-intuitive to us who choose to live in East Devon but more city development would certainly make a dent in coastal town/rural area calls for more development there:
“Contrary to popular belief, busy city centres beat suburban living when it comes to human wellbeing, as socialising and walking make for happier, healthier people, according to a new report.
Downtown residents – packed together in tight row houses or apartment blocks – are more active and socially engaged than people who live in the sprawl of suburbia, according to a report that aims to challenge popular beliefs about city life.
Its authors said their findings should encourage politicians to promote the benefits of built-up city living.”
“Responding to the Prime Minister’s conference announcement on housing, Radical Housing Network said:
“May is pumping £10bn into a housing policy that worsens the housing crisis: Help to Buy has kept house prices high, provides subsidies to a small number of people, and does nothing to address the chronic shortage of low-cost housing.
“And her announcement of £2bn for affordable housing alongside permitting some councils to build more social rent homes is simply tinkering at the edges of a failed system. May’s announcement was proclaimed a ‘revolutionary’ shift in policy – but in fact would only provide homes for just 5% of the 1.2 million people who have languished on waiting lists for years.
“Over decades we have lost 1.5 million council homes while powerful property owners dominate the market. In London, millions of people are stuck in poor housing on extortionate rents while developers game the system, while only a fraction – 13% – of new houses announced last year met even the low standard for ‘affordability’ set by the Conservatives.”
“If May wants to prove she’s ‘listened and learned’ on housing, she needs to get serious about providing the safe, decent and affordable homes which we desperately need. It’s estimated that we need national public investment of £10bn to provide enough council homes to meet demand, and it’s essential that tenants and communities are involved in the planning of those homes.
“Corbyn’s commitment to put tenants back at the heart of housing policy could be the start of real change, yet change is yet to be seen from London’s Labour run councils – including Lewisham, Haringey and Holloway – who continue to sell off public land and housing for profit in flawed ‘regeneration’ schemes, despite community opposition.
“The tragedy at Grenfell starkly revealed what happens when residents’ concerns and voices are ignored. Grenfell should mark a turning point for all parties, who must commit to real action on our broken housing system.”
Radical Housing Network, Facebook page
“If you want to see cognitive dissonance in action, watch the Conservative party try to develop popular housing policies without contravening its loyalty to developers, landlords or free market fundamentalism.
For years, experts from across the housing sector have called for investment in social housing and proper regulation of the private rented sector, so it was entirely predictable that Theresa May’s flagship policy at this year’s conference was a £10bn boost for the housing bubble in the form of the Help to Buy scheme. There may now be some move towards investment in housebuilding – albeit in partnership with large corporations – but the problem remains that the Conservatives are unwilling to confront the origins of the UK’s “great housing disaster”.
This apparent inability to understand root causes is a tendency that has afflicted successive governments. In 1989, as Margaret Thatcher’s government finalised the deregulation of the private rented sector, it was put to the then housing minister, Sir George Young, that some tenants might struggle with rents that would inevitably rise once rent controls were lifted. “If people cannot afford to pay that market rent,” Young assured, “housing benefit will take the strain.”
Fast forward to 2010 and the coalition government’s decision to cap housing benefit because its expenditure in the private rented sector was “out of control”. No one in David Cameron’s government mentioned deregulation, but to anyone who knew the history, the connection was clear: private sector tenants were now to be punished for the consequences of Thatcher’s reforms.
Jeremy Corbyn’s recent announcement that Labour would reintroduce some form of rent control has prompted landlords to warn that such a move would be a “disaster” for tenants. Landlords often claim to be acting in the best interests of tenants, yet cases in which tenants themselves laud the merits of uncontrolled rents are rather more difficult to find.
… It is clear that the UK needs investment in social housing, but regardless of what May announces today it will take time to build the number of homes needed to have a knock-on effect on prices. In the meantime, there are various models of rent control that have been proven to create more secure, affordable and sustainable rented sectors in other countries. Adopting a model such as that proposed by Generation Rent above would improve the lives of millions of renters in the here and now.
The truth is that the UK’s housing crisis is not merely a problem of supply and demand, but of class inequality being reproduced through property relations. Perhaps it is the prospect of the present system being curtailed that some find so terrifying.
• Matt Wilde is a research fellow in anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.”
“Councils are expected to be given new freedoms to build their own homes, while also being forced to assess local need and set targets to construct more housing in their area.”
You see where this is going again?
Developers get a “council house target”, start building, council houses “unviable”
or
Council has to find money to build council houses from their own “profits” on other services such as refuse collection, planning fees, council tax
Magic money trees.
And from a government that deliberately stopped building them.
Yet some will think this is wonderful, and vote for them.
Remember, this is a desperate minority government – the NHS was “safe in their hands” … education was safe in their hands …
“The boss of Cala Homes has hit out at ‘understaffed’ councils for slowing the pace of development as the firm reported a fifth year of record growth.
Alan Brown, chief executive of the private housebuilder, said that he wanted to see more “responsibility at a local level” for making sure development of new homes was able to go ahead.
“The issue is about how central government gets local government to take their responsibility more seriously,” he said. “At a time when the country desperately needs more homes, local authorities are cutting back on people.”
Research by the Royal Town Planning Institute released in August found that council planning departments were “just about managing” due to budget pressure.
“All local government services have been under significant pressure over the past few years, However, data suggests that planning and development has been the hardest hit of all,” the research found.
Mr Brown praised Theresa May’s commitment to extending the Help to Buy scheme, which helps first time buyers get onto the housing ladder. The prime minister announced over the weekend that the scheme would benefit a further 135,000 people, giving a boost to housebuilders who feared an end to the subsidy.
Around 14pc of Cala’s sales in the last year have been made through Help to Buy, Mr Brown said, although he added that he thought it should eventually be “transitioned out over time” as the number of higher loan-to-value mortgages increases.
Cala Homes, which is backed by Legal & General and Patron Capital, made revenues of £747.9m in the year to June 30, 27pc higher than in the previous year.
It rapidly increased the number of homes it built, completing 1,677 in the 12-month period compared to 1,151 in the previous year, an increase of 46pc.
Its pre-tax profits jumped 14pc to £68.5m, despite the average selling price of its homes dipping 8pc to £497,000. This was a result of Cala’s move away from building homes worth more than £1m in order to concentrate on more mid-market properties.
Clyde Lewis, analyst at Peel Hunt, said: “We expect the group to see a decent improvement in margins this year as strong volume growth catches up with the overhead investment.”
“Throwing another £10bn at the subsidy scheme will do nothing to improve the UK’s underlying housing problem
When former chancellor George Osborne launched his help to buy housing scheme in 2013, wise heads warned that, once a government starts subsidising mortgages, it will find it hard to stop.
So it is proving. Another £10bn is to be thrown at help to buy, the government has said in a supposedly crowd-pleasing announcement. This is a 50% increase on the sum already spent. City analysts calculate it will take until 2027 for all the money to be distributed. For as far as the eye can see, help to buy is here to stay.
On the evidence since 2013, the only guaranteed beneficiaries will be housebuilders. With a prop under house prices, their profit margins have returned to the 25% mark. Returns on capital are fatter in many cases. Yet this lovely cash hasn’t fuelled a golden era of housebuilding. Instead, the companies are returning their “surplus capital” to shareholders. Top executives, incentivised to do exactly that, are becoming richer than pre-crash bankers.
It isn’t even obvious that first-time buyers, as a group, have gained much. The ability to buy a new home with a 5% deposit is of questionable benefit if the price of the house has been artificially inflated and the government’s “interest free” portion of the mortgage doesn’t last forever.
Back in 2013, Osborne had excuse of sorts – he could plead that the banks were still in post-crash recovery mode. By contrast, the Bank of England these days frets about too much credit in the system, not too little. The situation cries out for imaginative policies to boost the supply of housing – especially regeneration projects. Another sugary serving of help to buy will do nothing to improve the underlying problem.
“We mustn’t let this scheme turn into a permanent scheme,” warned Lord King, governor of the Bank when help to buy was launched. His argument was that the policy was “a little too close for comfort to a general scheme to guarantee mortgages”. Too late now. Help to buy has acquired a life of its own and no politician dares to stand in its way.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/02/may-help-to-buy-housebuilders-uk-housing-problem
A rather technical article but basically the Supreme Court is to rule on how much information and how much detail y must be provided when an applicant wants to build in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty:
If you wish to give your views on the public perception of planning, a survey can be found here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RaynsfordPublic
Keep it clean, people, keep it clean!
Comments by 31 October 2017.
”City administrations in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and seven others decline to outline the spread of privately owned public areas, or their secret prohibitions – which may include protesting or taking photos.
Many of Britain’s largest cities are refusing to reveal information regarding the private ownership of seemingly public spaces, the Guardian has discovered, fuelling concerns about a growing democratic deficit within local city government.
A Guardian Cities investigation earlier this summer revealed for the first time the spread of pseudo-public space in London – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers – and an almost complete lack of transparency over secret restrictions imposed by corporations that limit the rights of citizens passing through their sites.
The Guardian has since requested data on pseudo-public spaces, which are sometimes known as privately owned public spaces (Pops), from the country’s biggest urban centres beyond the capital. …
… Following the Guardian’s initial investigation, national political leaders including Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats’ Vince Cable and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party all spoke out on the subject.
Shortly thereafter, a motion was passed in the London Assembly urging Khan to take a firm stance on the issue.
“Being able to know what rules you are being governed by, and how to challenge them, is a fundamental part of democracy,” said Sian Berry, a London Assembly member for the Green Party who proposed the motion.
“Increasingly, London’s public space is in private hands and there is very little transparency around which individuals and groups can have access,” added Labour’s Nicky Gavron. “These are Londoners’ outdoor living rooms and it is appalling that access can be restricted.”
Several assembly members pointed out that City Hall itself is located on open but private land controlled by the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait, which refuses to allow journalists to operate in the area without corporate permission.
The Mayor of London has vowed to establish new guidelines covering privately-owned “public” sites, designed to “maximise access and minimise restrictions, as well as enabling planners to establish potential restrictions at the application stage for new developments.” …
… Ultimately, some experts conclude, any widespread challenge to the spread of pseudo-public spaces may come from citizens themselves rather than top-down institutional leaders.
“The planning process is supposed to be democratic,” Adam Fineberg, an expert adviser on public services, observed. “The people responsible for drawing up planning policies and sitting on planning committees are elected representatives. So if citizens are concerned about this issue in their local areas, they can campaign and put pressure on representatives through the ballot box and try to ensure that future planning applications by developers are required to meet clear and strong conditions regarding public access and open governance. There’s nothing stopping planning authorities making approval dependent on those conditions being met. It’s a question of local democracy.” “
Exeter City Council Leader Pete Edwards is known for having a dream of what has been dubbed “Pete’s Pool” on the site of the current Exeter Bus Station, despite warnings that Brexit could send it pear-shaped. And now, indeed, the pear has been shaped as both the Princesshay extension AND the pool plans have, at least for now, bitten the dust, with Brexit price rises cited as part of the problem.
Is there a lesson here for “Paul’s Folly” – the new EDDC HQ which could cost us anything from £3 million – £10 million (depending on whether EDDC can sell its current HQ to luxury-retirement home developer PegasusLife?
“Exeter’s hoped-for city centre development has been hit by a “double whammy” after a deal to build the new leisure centre and bus station collapsed, the city council leader has revealed.
It emerged on Monday morning that the Crown Estate had cancelled its plans to extend Princesshay shopping centre, citing “market conditions”.
This consigned to the rubbish bin an ambitious plan for a huge public space and amphitheatre across Paris Street into the old bus station and up to the back of Sidwell Street.
Following this, Exeter City Council revealed that a contract with the firm lined up to build the state-of-the-art swimming pool and bus station, believed to be Sir Robert McAlpine, had not been signed.
The authority has now walked away from the deal and plans to re-tender for both projects, adding a year to the completion date, now set at 2020.
Asked if the two were connected, council leader Pete Edwards said the building firm may have been banking on securing the contract to construct the Princesshay extension. …
… Economic uncertainty around Brexit has been blamed for rising prices and the falling value of the pound may have made the leisure centre even more expensive.
Cllr Edwards believes the exchange rate is making material from mainland Europe more expensive but has vowed to complete the project, dubbed by critics “Pete’s Pool”, “before he dies”.
“It is a double whammy and a disaster for the city,” he added. …”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeters-double-whammy-leisure-centre-529532
“The leader of Exeter City Council says he’s gutted the plug has been pulled on a multi-million pound development in the city – and was totally unaware before it happened.
The controversial development, which includes a new bus station and leisure facilities, was only given final approval in July – two years after the original plans were submitted.
The Crown Estate and TH Real Estate said they were no longer able to “progress the proposed extension to the Pincesshay shopping centre”, citing current market conditions.
Council leader Pete Edwards said: “We thought is was all going ahead… but we are committed to this leisure centre and bus station.”
He said he will be calling a special council meeting to ”discuss the way forward.”
<em“Appeal documents published this week reveal the continued strength of feeling against redevelopment plans for Knowle – with claims Sidmouth would be dealt a ‘devastating blow’.
PegasusLife has taken landowner East Devon District Council’s decision to refuse its scheme to the Planning Inspectorate.
In emotional submissions, residents said the developer’s proposals for 113 retirement flats ‘run a coach and horses’ over the site’s 50-home allocation in the Local Plan and would create an ‘elderly ghetto’.
Organisations including Sidmouth Arboretum, the Vision Group for Sidmouth, and the Knowle Residents’ Association have also responded to reiterate their calls for the application to be thrown out.
The Sid Vale Association said: “PegasusLife has clearly done its utmost to maximise the development on the site for commercial reasons.
“The appeal should be refused on the grounds that it seeks more than double the number of dwellings earmarked in the Local Plan; that it proposes buildings of a poor architectural design, and that its impacts on nearby residents and on the public parkland are unacceptable.”
Liz Fuller, the buildings at risk officer at SAVE Britain’s Heritage, restated its strong objection to the proposals, saying they represented a ‘devastating blow’ to the history and character of Sidmouth.
Knowle Drive resident Robin Fuller said: “If, at the first major test of the Local Plan, a developer succeeds in turning over its objectives by a huge margin, then the process of local planning is null and void and local democracy can be considered dead and buried.
“Approval on appeal will set a precedent for other developments to run a coach and horses through the intentions of the plan.”
PegasusLife said its scheme will only ‘materially impact’ Hillcrest and its amenity will not be adversely affected.
Homeowners Rob and Sandra Whittle challenged this, adding: “It is crucial that the planning inspector make an internal visit to Hillcrest to understand the negative impact on our home and appreciate what a permanently devastating blow this development in its present form would have on our lives.”
Submissions said 20 homes besides Hillcrest, in Knowle Drive and Broadway, would be adversely affected.
George and Ann Ellis live in Knowle Drive but were in support of the appeal. They said: “Although parts of the development will have some effect on us we feel that these will not be too much of an inconvenience in what to us seems an otherwise satisfactory and necessary scheme. We are very conscious that there is a great need for more housing in the UK with a growing and ageing population.
“Sidmouth is a very popular retirement location and there now appear to be few sites for development – hence the suitability of Knowle.
“There is a big demand for older people to downsize and the benefit of this is that more properties are freed up for younger families.”
EDDC’s development management committee defied officer advice to refuse the scheme last December – arguing it represented a departure from Knowle’s 50-home allocation in the Local Plan. Members also objected to the scale, height, bulk and massing of the proposed development.
At the appeal, PegasusLife will argue the scheme is ‘thoughtful and considered’, its benefits outweigh any potential harm to the listed summerhouse and there is a ‘compelling need’ for extra care accommodation in East Devon.
The deal is worth £7.505million to EDDC, which is relocating to Exmouth and Honiton.
The inquiry will open at 10am on Tuesday, November 28.”
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/knowle-plans-would-create-elderly-ghetto-1-5203821
After YEARS of believing affordable and social homes are lived in only by Labour voters and therefore not worth building, the Conservatives suddenly seem to have woken up to the bigger issue that NO housing = NO votes for them either.
Duh. And, as the saying goes: wise words butter no parsnips – writing or making speeches is not doing.
“The covenant of British politics is broken. The European referendum of 2016 was the first clue and the strange general election a year later the second. As the political assemblies gather at their conferences to contemplate their own little world, the gap between the promise of politics and popular problems has perhaps never been greater. There will be urgently missable fringe meetings in Brighton and Manchester over the next fortnight which seek to draw lessons from Syriza’s Greece, Trump’s America or Macron’s France. The problem can be located much closer to home.
Housing minister was once a cabinet position and really must be again. For an issue which has so frequently paid a political dividend it has been remarkably relegated down the order of priorities. The domestic response to the two world wars was to rebuild the housing stock. David Lloyd George pledged homes fit for war heroes and the 1924 Labour government offered a housing act as its only substantive achievement. Aneurin Bevan spent more time on housing after 1945 than he did on the NHS and the number of houses built was one of the ways the Attlee government asked to be judged. The last time the Conservative Party really connected to the urban working class was when Margaret Thatcher arranged for 100,000 of them a year to buy the homes once owned and neglected by the council.
For the most part, though, the covenant on housing policy has operated silently. There has been an implicit bargain in postwar British politics that buying your own home is an index of progress and that, with hard work, it should be possible. After Bevan, housing policy has been directed towards the vision that Neville Chamberlain once described as “the property-owning democracy”.
There is a hint of the politics of housing in that phrase. Tories have assumed that owning property makes conservatives of people while Labour, the constant voice of municipal housing, has assumed the large estates create a client group of its own voters. Council house sales were first mooted by Joe Haines, who worked for Harold Wilson, but rejected by his party for privatising the nation’s assets. Throughout the twists and turns of policy, property rights have had a unique connotation in Britain, signalling the assumption that a home of one’s own is the prize for all citizens.
It is therefore a political fact of the first order that home ownership has fallen to 63.5 per cent, its lowest level since 1987. Household growth has been strong as the population has increased and as more people live alone but the supply of houses is stagnant. With the value of land increasing, house builders are better described as landlords. Building is at its lowest level since 1923 and last year Britain built 100,000 homes fewer than the 250,000 per annum that are needed just to meet existing demand.
The facts gathered by the Resolution Foundation in its report Home Affront: housing across the generations continue the work that David Willetts, now the think tank’s executive chairman, began in his fine book The Pinch. They describe a life for the youngest generation of adults that may differ fundamentally, financially, from that of their grandparents and may be, for the first time, worse. Housing costs for the average family have tripled since 1961, from 6 per cent of income to 18 per cent. The typical age for buying property is moving from the 30s to the 40s. The generation of people below the age of 30 spend almost a quarter of their income on housing, which is three times as much as their grandparents spent at the same age. They are also having to make do with smaller places to live, further from work. It is both more expensive and considerably worse and there is never a political dividend in that combination.
Home ownership has been falling across all regions and income groups since 2003 but the youngest cohort will be hit the hardest. The option of social housing is now a rarity so a whole generation has started to rent privately. Half a century ago one in ten 30-year-olds rented a home. Now it is four in ten. A family headed by a 30-year-old today is half as likely to be a homeowner as their parents were at the age of 30.
There are manifold reasons for the decline in home ownership. People are spending longer in education, marrying and having children later, immigration has increased, the divorce rate has required more houses for the same population and people are living longer and are understandably reluctant to vacate the homes they call their own. In the wake of the crash of 2008 wages have been stagnant and access to mortgage finance has been curtailed. The low supply of new homes has produced the obvious effect of higher prices. A generation ago it took the average family 3 years to save enough for a deposit on a house. Now it would take almost 20 years.
It means that a different life beckons from the implied bargain of British politics. Coming to home ownership later, if at all, means that people will carry mortgages later in life, perhaps even beyond working age. That, in turn, will affect the capacity of that generation to save for retirement. The whole journey of life shifts back and that is for those who manage to embark at all. There is a set of people who are seriously thinking they might be stuck renting indefinitely. There are now 11 million people in rented accommodation in the private market.
The minister in charge, Sajid Javid, has an opportunity if he is bold enough to seize it. In a speech on Tuesday he made some encouraging noises about a review of social housing policy after the disaster of Grenfell Tower. He really needs, though, to do something about the quantity of social housing too. The proportion of families in this sector has halved, under government neglect, since 1981 and there is no quick solution which does not involve the government doing some building. The problems here are fundamental. Low and stagnant wages, money flowing into British property from offshore, restrictive planning and no infrastructure guidance from the centre.
“Unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don’t will become more pronounced. And more and more of the country’s money will go into expensive housing instead of more productive investments that generate more economic growth”. Wise words. Theresa May’s words, at the launch of her campaign to succeed David Cameron. She needs to say them again in the knowledge that, if her party retains its fabled survival instinct, it will grant her enough authority to act.”
Source: The Times, pay wall
Home Affront: housing across the generations
a report by the Resolution Foundation
Key findings
“After those born in 1946-50, every cohort has experienced lower home ownership rates than its predecessor at the same age. Today’s families headed by 30 year olds are only half as likely to own their home as the baby boomer generation was at the same age, and home ownership has declined across all regions and income groups.
With falling home ownership and a shrinking social rented sector, four out of every ten 30 year olds now live in private rented accommodation – in contrast to one in ten 50 years ago.
Millennials have also been more likely to be living with their parents in their mid-20s than previous cohorts, while families are much less likely to house their elderly parents than they were in the past.
While the average family spent just 6 per cent of their income on housing costs in the early 1960s, this has trebled to 18 per cent. Housing costs have taken up a growing proportion of disposable income from each generation to the next. This is true of private and social renters, but mortgage interest costs have come down for recent generations. However, the proportion of income being spent on capital repayments has risen relentlessly from generation to generation thanks to house price growth.
The quality of housing has in many respects improved hugely. But millennial-headed households are more likely than previous generations to live in overcrowded conditions, and when we look at the distribution of square meterage we see today’s under-45s have been net losers in the space stakes compared to previous cohorts, while over-45s are net gainers.
More recent generations have also had longer commutes on average than previous cohorts, despite spending more on housing.
We conclude by modelling what the future might hold for today’s young people. Based on historic relationships between a range of factors and home ownership growth, an optimistic set of assumptions would imply that these cohorts could make up much of the lost ground on home ownership. However, if similar trends to the 2002-2012 were to return, less than half of millennials will buy a home before the age of 45 compared to over 70 per cent of baby boomers who had done so by that age.
Clearly there is scope for political determination to make a difference to the housing outlook, and future work for the Intergenerational Commission will consider what action should be taken.”
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/home-affront-housing-across-the-generations/
“Millennials are spending three times more of their income on housing than their grandparents yet are often living in worse accommodation, says a study launched by former Conservative minister David Willetts that warns of a “housing catastrophe”.
The generation currently aged 18-36 are typically spending over a third of their post-tax income on rent or about 12% on mortgages, compared with 5%-10% of income spent by their grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite spending more, young people today are more likely to live in overcrowded and smaller spaces, and face longer journeys to work – commuting for the equivalent of three days a year more than their parents.” …
Owl says: But why is everyone surprised? This is the free market in operation – what Conservatives have ALWAYS believed in. This automatically favours “survival of the fittest” which most often means the most wealthy. Nothing new there. Just get wealthy – problem solved.
Unfortunately, those low down in the pecking order seem to think that, if they vote Conservative, they will be helped to become rich. That isn’t how it works – the rich like their exclusivity and power. Sharing that power with more people isn’t in their interest as it dilutes both – less exclusive, more power-sharing = not a good idea.
Wise up everyone: if you want change in a Tory constituency or in the country, hold your nose and vote for whoever in your constituency is most likely to come second, and make them first. Change IS hard – but it is desperately needed if we are to do the right thing by all generations.
David Orr, National Housing Federation:
““… The prime minister is right that we’ve not paid social housing enough attention. After the tragic fire at Grenfell, this crisis can no longer be ignored. The government must be bold and make a break with the past by making money available to build genuinely affordable homes.
“There’s more than a billion pounds that remains unspent on Starter Homes. Let’s put this money to use and let housing associations build 20,000 of the genuinely affordable homes the nation needs.”
Orr, who is chief executive of the federation, is expected to argue for a complete shift in government policy.
Since 2010 the government has overseen a massive reduction in the provision of homes for social rent, instead focusing on “affordable” rents, which can be as much as 80% of the market value.
A report by the federation, produced to coincide with the conference, says the amount of capital committed by the government to homebuilding has fallen from £11.4bn in 2009 to £5.3bn in 2015.
In combination with this, the decision to stop public funding for social rented homes led to a decline in construction of these from 36,000 starts in 2010/11 to slightly over 3,000 the next year.
The report says the only new social rent homes now are coming either from previous funding commitments or through cross-subsidies within housing associations projects, amounting to just under 1,000 starts in 2016/17.
It says the increase in rented housing stock has instead come from the private sector, with a 57% rise in real terms over the past two decades.
The federation says private rents are on average £21 per week more expensive than their social let equivalents, meaning that over the last 20 years the annual spend on housing benefit has risen from £16.6bn to £25.1bn.
There is another cost, the report says. “Not only is it 23% more expensive to house someone in the private rented sector than social housing, but none of that money increases the supply of new homes.
“Social landlords do reinvest in new homes, building a third of all new homes last year including for social rent from their own funds, but the same does not happen in the private rented sector.”
In his speech, Orr will argue that this is an unsustainable situation. “It is absurd that we’re spending less on building social housing than we did in the 90s – there are even more people today on housing waiting lists than then, despite increasingly stringent criteria.
“We know we need more, better quality social housing. And yet, rather than putting public money into building the homes we need, we are propping up rents in a failing market. Ultimately, this is poor value for the taxpayer and has a knock-on effect on everyone struggling to rent or buy.”
John Healey, the shadow housing secretary, said: “Conservative ministers have washed their hands of any responsibility to build the homes families on ordinary incomes need. Ministers try to hide their failure to build more affordable homes by branding more homes ‘affordable’. The Conservative definition of affordable housing now includes homes close to full market rent and on sale for up to £450,000.
“Public concern about housing is around the highest level for 40 years. Millions of families are struggling with high housing costs. Faced with this, ministers have turned their back on the way they can help most – by building low-cost homes to rent and buy.” …”
(see also post below)
“Anyone who has fielded rival bids for a kitchen extension is likely to be familiar with the pattern: once contracts are signed and work is under way the winning bidder finds ways to cut costs or otherwise boost profits. Committed to the project, the client’s options are to sue or surrender.
In the multibillion-pound business of updating and expanding Britain’s housing stock, the equivalent of the kitchen extension is the mixed-used development that includes affordable housing to be let or sold at below-market rates.
Affordable housing is in critically short supply. This drives up prices in precisely the areas where buyers and the broader housing market need them to come down. It forces low-income families to live farther and farther from places of work, especially in the southeast, and it is storing up trouble for a weak Conservative government with little traction among voters aged under 40.
This is a government that has promised 1.5 million new homes by 2022. In principle almost all these homes are to be built by the private sector. In practice developers are being allowed to game the system by promising generous allocations of affordable housing only to dilute those commitments once planning permission has been granted and building is under way.
Examples of this underhand but technically legal approach are legion in cities. It has now spread to rural Britain too. The country’s biggest builders are rowing back on affordable housing commitments to the extent of 18 much-needed rural homes a day, leading to a projected shortfall of 33,000 affordable homes in the countryside as a whole by the end of this parliament.
The government should be acting to fix the problem. Instead it is making it worse, siding with developers against local councils in 17 of 23 appeals by builders seeking to cut the number of affordable housing units for which they have had to budget since 2013. Worse still, the process is shrouded in secrecy because it hinges on “viability assessments” that developers are allowed to keep confidential unless a court demands wider access.
These assessments should be open to public scrutiny as a matter of course. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, claims to have adopted an “honest, open and consistent” approach to assessing local housing needs. It is none of these things.
In the housing plans that all local authorities are required to produce, the average requirement for affordable housing in rural areas is 68 per cent of the total. Under pressure from builders that share has fallen to 29 per cent, even as the companies post record profits. Those of the country’s three largest housebuilders have quadrupled since 2012.
Britain is a crowded island. Space for new homes is at a premium. Demand for land reliably outstrips supply. Landowners sell to high bidders who seek guaranteed generous profit margins to protect against downturns in a market that they are helping to overheat.
This is a classic market failure that might warrant state intervention in the form of publicly funded housebuilding to balance supply and demand at the lower end of the property ladder. This government has ruled that out, however, cutting public spending on social housing by 97 per cent since 2010 and on affordable housing by half in the same period.
At the same time, as the head of the National Housing Federation tells its annual conference today, housing benefit payments have risen by 51 per cent over the past two decades, to £25 billion a year, to help to cover inflated private sector rents.
If the government insists on staying out of the housebuilding business itself it must at the very least make affordable housing quotas binding, and high enough to house those unable to get on the housing ladder any other way. The alternative is a property-owning democracy that founders for want of property to own.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
Government thinks 20% profit is acceptable for developers.
We all know that, as developers make their case to cut affordable homes on a development by development basis, and not on aggregate figures, they can make numbers tell any story.
Seems weird that, with this system, as so many developments don’t make enough money to fund affordable homes, their profits soar, their directors get bigger and bigger bonuses and their shareholders get higher and higher dividends.
It’s a magic money tree!
“The countryside is facing a shortfall of 33,000 affordable homes over the next five years despite builders making record profits at a time of rising rural homelessness.
Profits at Britain’s three biggest builders have quadrupled since 2012 to £2.2 billion, yet they regularly cite financial constraints when cutting affordable homes in developments. Builders miss targets for affordable homes in the countryside by 18 houses a day, research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) shows.
Profits at Barratt Developments, Britain’s biggest developer, increased almost sevenfold from £100 million in 2012 to £682 million last year. Meanwhile, the number of affordable homes fell from 23 per cent of the total built in 2012 to 17 per cent last year.
Developers use “viability studies” under planning laws to pressure local authorities into cutting the requirement for affordable homes. The reports are kept confidential, on commercial grounds, but documents seen by The Times show that officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) ruled that 20 per cent profit was a “reasonable” margin for a developer. They backed a builder’s attempt to cut the number of affordable homes at a development in Gloucestershire to safeguard that return.
Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, has said that failing to fix Britain’s “broken housing market . . . would be nothing less than an act of intergenerational betrayal”.
Research by the CPRE found that the government overruled councils fighting house builders in 17 out of 23 appeals since 2013. Matt Thomson, the CPRE’s head of planning, said developers had councils “over a barrel”. “The developers will say, ‘Either you give us the 20 per cent profit we need, otherwise we won’t build the houses’,” he said. “It’s just extortion at the end of the day.”
The charity analysed more than 60 local plans, which are council blueprints for new housing, and found that the average rural authority needed 68 per cent of new homes to be affordable. Affordable housing includes shared ownership schemes, council houses and properties owned by housing associations which are rented at no more than 80 per cent of the market rate.
In practice, the councils cut the official requirement to just 29 per cent affordable, on the ground that developers would never agree to 68 per cent. Even that has proven unachievable. Just 26 per cent of new homes in the countryside were classed as affordable over the past three years. The average rural authority is short of 46 affordable homes a year. Across 145 rural authorities in England that is a shortfall of 6,670 homes a year.
A separate report by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that 6,270 rural households became homeless in 2016, part of a 40 per cent rise in rough sleeping since 2010. The centre-left think thank partly blamed “shortages in affordable homes”.
Polly Neate, the head of Shelter, a charity for the homeless, said the crisis would only get worse “if we keep letting developers off the hook”.
The Home Builders Federation, which represents developers, said local authorities “should be realistic”. “Making projects unviable reduces overall housing supply, including the supply of more affordable housing,” Andrew Whitaker, its planning director, said.
Georgina Butler, head of affordable housing at Barratt, said the company was “absolutely committed to delivering the homes of all types that the country needs”.
A spokesman for the DCLG said almost 333,000 affordable homes had been built since 2010, more than 102,000 in rural local authorities.
A funding crisis in social housing will continue unless the government “breaks with the past” to provide financial backing for new affordable homes, the head of an influential housing sector body will say today.
Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money could be saved by building social housing instead of channelling housing benefit to private landlords, David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, will tell the organisation’s annual conference.
The government decided in 2010 that no further public money would be made available to finance social housing, which provides accommodation at below-market rents to those on low incomes.
Britain needs to build about 250,000 new homes a year to cope with an existing shortage and a growing population, but only 141,000 homes were built last year.
About a million families are on the housing waiting list, said the NHF, which represents housing associations and social landlords.
In a report published today, the NHF says that the government is now spending “more than ever” on housing benefit to accommodate people in private rentals instead of cheaper social homes, which cost £21 a week less per person.
The amount of housing benefit channelled to private landlords almost doubled in the last decade to £9.1 billion.
“This is poor value for the taxpayer and has a knock-on effect on everyone struggling to rent or buy,” the NHF said.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 