Dangerous, unsafe homes are costing the NHS up to £2.5bn a year in treating ill people, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has warned in a new study.
The research, entitled The Social Impact of Poor Housing, also reveals the cost to the public purse of police responses to crimes associated with substandard housing could be as high as £1.8bn a year.
Under new proposals by Government, Councils will be handed new powers to fund and manage their own council homes, free from Whitehall interference.
Housing Minister John Healy has suggested dismantling the current Housing Revenue Account System of funding council housing. And in doing so, he is offering local government the very control of the system that town halls have demanded for decades.
Mr Healey explained that his plan, which will now go out to consultation, would also free up sufficient funding – through streamlined processes and the redistribution of cash within the existing system – for councils to build 10,000 new council homes every year under a Labour government.
£500m approximately will be available in the second round of the Government’s Kickstart Regeneration Scheme after first round bidders are turned down due to not meeting value for money or quality standards, or could not meet the timescales.
The Homes and Communities Agency shortlisted 270 schemes for the £925 million fund in July. This was part of the Kickstart project to drive house building by injecting funds into regeneration schemes that have been stalled by the economic downturn.
All the money was earmarked for the projects that were originally shortlisted.
But Housing Minister John Healey has announced the final 115 schemes will be funded through the first round of Kickstart, which will receive £389 million between them to deliver just fewer than 9,000 homes. This brings the total allocation for round one to £449m, to fund 11,762 homes.
Arm’s-length management organisations (ALMOs) have applied for a judicial review of the Government’s decision to defer £150m for refurbishments until 2011 / 2012.
Councils whose ALMOs were in the sixth round of funding bids have announced they are seeking legal action, arguing that withdrawing funding at such short notice and with almost immediate effect ‘significantly damages their ability to plan and deliver services which affect tens of thousands of tenants across the country.’
England will be short of a million homes by the end of 2010, according to a new report, suggesting the financial crisis is creating a housing crisis.
The Town and Country Planning Association report, Mind the Gap, has found the gap between supply and demand would be 150,000 in 2009.
Housing completions may be as low as 100,000 in 2008 / 2009 with the rate of growth in the housing sector unlikely to rise above 10% a year for the next few years.
The housing minister has launched the second round of the government’s council housing building programme.
John Healey said he is making £180 million available to fund 1,200 homes ‘for councils that are ready to help build the affordable homes we need in this country’.
Bids must be in by the end of next month and the successful bidders will be announced by the end of 2009. Councils will be subjected to the same requirements as private developers and housing associations to run apprenticeship schemes and promote local employment.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed a rise public sector work in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the previous quarter.
The ONS stated a 12 per cent rise in ‘non housing’ projects such as the Olympics project and the restart of the school building programme, together with a more modest 3 per cent rise in social housing work.
The rise has led to belief that the worst of the recession’s ‘adjustment’ is now over and a gradual recovery of the construction sector is now likely.
The four successful eco-town proposals have each been asked to submit plans for the developments, to include affordable housing.
The Communities and Local Government department has issued a consultation document, which sets out how the developers should construct a ‘programme of development’ for the sites.
The document is set to determine how much funding each eco-town developer will get over the next two years, from the £60m available.
A Whitehall paper has disclosed the responsibilities and roles of Central and Local Government for the Housing and Regeneration Sectors.
The Central-Local Agreement paper states the role of the Homes and Communities Agency alongside details of what ministers expect from town halls in exchange for funding affordable housing and renewal projects.
The Government has published research on attitudes to social housing, which includes its plans to allow councils to give greater priorities to applicants with jobs.
The survey, carried out by polling company Ipsos MORI in 2008, revealed 48% of respondents believed more low-income working households should be given social homes, as opposed to always housing the most vulnerable first. An equivalent number suggested that people who had lived in an area for a long time should have priority for social housing.
However, the Communities and local Government Department has also carried out focus groups, which highlighted the difficulties encountered when applying general beliefs and attitudes about social housing allocation.
Participants did support notions of mixed communities in general. But when presented with limited available stock, they reverted to allocating homes to the most vulnerable, with the greatest immediate needs.
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