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Housing – the most important domestic priority?

Above:  Thorncliffe colleague Oli Hazell leads a discussion on housing policy

For a Prime Minister often supposed to be obsessed with Brexit to the exclusion of every other issue, Theresa May has certainly made many speeches on housing. This week she became the first PM to speak at the National Housing Federation summit, and made clear her policy on social housing.

May reminded delegates of her Downing Street speech on first becoming PM, which committed her to a “personal mission to fix our broken housing system”. She also reminded them of previously announced policies, including several u-turns on Cameron era proposals which were widely criticised and feared in the social housing sector. That includes guaranteeing rents, not going ahead with benefit caps, and delaying extending ‘Right to buy’ to housing association tenants.

It is easy to dismiss the concrete announcement of £2 billion over six years as being negligible, and that not until 2022. Andrew Adonis points out it amounts to just a tenth of the pro-rata spend on social housing in Scotland. But that may be missing the point.

May intends the commitment not as direct subsidy, but to give housing associations a guarantee of long-term funding – through which they can begin to leverage private finance. She emphasised the unique status of housing associations as “public interested, non-profit private institutions”.

This is a shift from the Cameron government, who managed to get so close to housing associations by 2015 that the Office for National Statistics was forced to classify them against their will as public bodies (counter-productively adding housing association borrowing to the national debt).

Former Secretary of State Sajid Javid succeeded in reversing the move precisely to allow housing associations to borrow and build. May is now exhorting housing associations to “lead major developments themselves”, which is exactly what several of the larger groups have been doing; she praised L&Q for their Barking Riverside development, and Peabody for leading on Thamesmead.

Hearing much more positive words, and a Conservative Prime Minister praising social housing, is actually significant in itself. It gives a lead to Conservative councillors who are making decisions on social housing schemes every week: May referred directly to “too many politicians … look down on social housing”. Some may feel, as Nick Clegg reported David Cameron and George Osborne, that “it just creates Labour voters”. May backed up her campaign to remove the stigma with support for tenure-blind design.

May pointedly quoted Nottingham historian Chris Matthews in describing council housing as the “biggest collective leap in living standards in British history” and cited an anecdote from Tony Parker’s 1970s study of the Brandon Estate in Southwark. Yet her speech was to an audience of housing associations, not councils, and her government is still wary about lifting the cap on Housing Revenue Account borrowing which a cross-party local government lobby urges as a way of getting genuine council homes built.

The speech has had criticism from the social housing sector over the low level of funding, with many pointing out that spend on social housing is dwarfed by the amount spent supporting private sector housing through Help to Buy and other schemes. Recent leaks have suggested Help to Buy is now seen as pushing up house prices; the Budget due in November may see changes.

Many have detected an implicit warning in the way the end of May’s speech was constructed: having made policy changes (including embarrassing u-turns) to help housing associations, she seemed to be saying that they had better now deliver. What is unclear is whether there is a plan B should this approach not work.

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What people say about us…

Smooth operation

Many thanks for last night: a very smooth operation!

Message was very welcome

Was a great result – especially to receive unanimous approval! Many thanks also for you and your team’s work in the run up to the committee. Getting those messages across really helped and was evident by the feedback given by members on both sides of the political spectrum … notably on the successfully engagement with residents and how the scheme responded accordingly. Message was very welcome!

On point

Harry was on point and has been the whole way through. We are all very chuffed. We are already preparing for another rather testing application on another site and you can be certain that we will engage you

Appreciated

Thanks Richard, your help has been much appreciated. Will let you know when the next job comes up!

Big guns!

Thanks for your and the team’s help. It was good to know we had the proverbial big guns in our armoury!

You kept calm

Many thanks for that: your team did very well, and kept a lot calmer than me! Matt was a sensible wise head, as was Alex, but he also made me think succinctly for the questions and how to answer, which is a great skill to try and acquire. Especially for someone as verbose as me!

A unanimous approval

Councillors praised both officers and the developer on their work and engagement.

A unanimous approval 5-0

With your help

Really pleased to hear the news this evening

With your help, we got it through !!!!

Best Regards!

Truly excellent example

Great news that we approved 60 houses on green belt last night.

It was tremendous that the Chair said that this was a “truly excellent example of good consultation…”

Gave me more confidence

Thank you – we were both somewhat surprised given the level of objections but in fact the committee hardly discussed the scheme at all before consenting it.

Thanks to your team for preparing me well for the committee which certainly gave me more confidence.

A big relief

Thank you. A big relief. As I am sure you can appreciate, we are delighted!

Your team did a great job, especially Matt who was integral.

I look forward to catching up soon.

Unanimous

196 flats approved unanimously, thanks to all involved.

Professional and effective

I wanted to thank you and all at Thorncliffe for managing the consultation process so professionally and effectively. This, without doubt, played a crucial role in gaining the approval.

Once again, all our thanks.

Was a good result

Cant remember the last time I got anything through unanimously!

Was a good result, it’s the right scheme for the site and of course we had a great team including yourselves working on it,

First class troops

Richard. Your troops did a first class job as always. Many thanks

Praise for communityUK

Well done for the way you presented tonight’s online consultation. I thought it was an excellent format.

Great result last night

I just wanted to say thank you again for all your help with the great result last night.

You have been tremendous and it is much appreciated.

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