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Henry TerefenkoHenry Terefenko
Henry Terefenko is chief executive of ForHousing

Now is the time to think about the next 100 years of council housing

Comment01.08.19by Henry Terefenko

As we mark 100 years of council housing, it is time for the sector to start thinking about the next 100 years, writes Henry Terefenko

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Council housing in Hackney, east London (picture: Getty)
Council housing in Hackney, east London (picture: Getty)
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Now is the time to think about the next 100 years of council housing, writes Henry Terefenko #ukhousing
As we mark 100 years of council housing, it is time for the sector to start thinking about the next 100 years, writes Henry Terefenko #ukhousing

This month, Inside Housing has been running a series of articles to mark 100 years since the Housing Act came into force in 1919.

The legislation was designed to provide affordable housing for everyone in the aftermath of the First World War. The war created a sense of national responsibility to provide “homes fit for heroes” for the soldiers returning from the frontline.

At the time it was a huge step forward, an innovation that had not been seen anywhere else in the world before.

Fast-forward 100 years and questions remain about whether the Housing Act is still achieving what it set out to do: tackle inequalities by providing everyone with the right to a high-quality, affordable home.

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Happy 100th anniversary Addison Act – celebrating 100 years of council housingHappy 100th anniversary Addison Act – celebrating 100 years of council housing
Housing associations should also celebrate 100 years of council housingHousing associations should also celebrate 100 years of council housing

While there is a century’s worth of history to factor in, it can be argued that the Right to Buy boom in the 1980s and the economic crash of 2008 have been among the biggest factors fuelling the severe shortage of affordable homes we have today.

At ForHousing we are committed to creating quality homes and places where people will aspire to live, fuelling the potential of people and enabling possibilities for all. We want to ensure that the spirit of the Housing Act lives on.

“We need to build homes that meet the needs of the people living in communities while also addressing some of the big social challenges we face”

In the North West we’ve developed more than 900 new homes to date across a mix of tenures and we’ll be building a further 540 by 2020.

But we need to do more. The challenge is more complex than housing numbers.

We need to build homes that meet the needs of the people living in communities while also addressing some of the big social challenges we face.

These include meeting the housing needs of an ageing population, tackling and preventing the root causes of homelessness, and addressing poverty and widening inequalities.

A recent report from the Centre for Ageing Better shows that the number of people aged 65 and over is set to grow by more than 40 per cent in just two decades – reaching over 17 million by 2036.

We face a huge task as a sector to meet this growing need.

That’s why we are investing more than £12m in building more than 90 homes for older people in Stockbridge Village in Knowsley. It is a state-of-the-art facility that will provide much-needed supported housing.

We are also committed to eradicating homelessness, something we passionately hope will be a distant memory long before another 100 years passes.

Recent research from Shelter shows that around one in 600 people in the UK are homeless. The scale of the problem is unprecedented.

We are working collaboratively with partners to prevent and address homelessness in a variety of ways across the North West.

It is our duty as housing providers to help solve the housing crisis, but we also need to find innovative ways to continuously improve the tenant-focused services we offer.

We believe that health and housing are closely linked and that in the future we will need to work even more closely to reduce health inequalities and pressure on the NHS.

“We will need to build homes that meet the changing needs of the population while continuing to do all we can to build people’s aspirations and, in turn, stronger communities”

‘Social prescribing’ enables people to choose from a range of non-clinical support services – from healthy-eating sessions to gardening – and is a way of not just mitigating the clinical impact of some illnesses, but also of enabling lifestyle changes that could prevent these illnesses in the first place.

It’s an example of the kind of innovation that our sector needs to drive if we are to build on aims set out in the Housing Act 100 years ago, and continue to play a role in tackling issues such as mental ill health, poverty and inequality.

Now is the time to start thinking about the legacy we will leave for the next 100 years.

We will need to build homes that meet the changing needs of the population while continuing to do all we can to build people’s aspirations and, in turn, stronger communities.

We must work more closely with tenants and partners to tackle the challenges that lie ahead and build the homes and communities of the future together.

Henry Terefenko, chief executive, ForHousing

Why is council housing important?

As the sector celebrates #100yearsofcouncilhousing you've been taking to Twitter to answer our question - why is council housing important?

Here are some of your responses:

 

 

100 Years of Council Housing: we want to hear from you

100 Years of Council Housing: we want to hear from you

To mark the 100th anniversary of the act receiving Royal Assent in July, we have a month of special activities planned, including interviews with senior council housing figures, exclusive debate and comment, and investigations into what local authorities, past and present, are doing to help provide housing.

This will signal the start of a stronger focus on local authority housing issues over the coming months on www.insidehousing.co.uk and in our weekly print and digital editions.

We want to hear from you about your local authority is doing to mark the Addison Act and about the housing issues in your area, email: editorial@insidehousing.co.uk

Sign up to receive the latest housing news straight to your inbox through our exclusive Council Focus bulletin

Click here to register

If you are already a subscriber click here to manage your newsletter sign-ups

Click here to read more about our activity to mark the Addison Act

100 Years of Council Housing: what Inside Housing is doing

One hundred years ago, a piece of legislation led to the birth of council housing. Gavriel Hollander introduces Inside Housing’s celebration of the centenary of the Addison Act.

It is so ingrained in our national consciousness that it is hard to imagine just how radical the idea of local authority built and funded housing must have seemed a century ago. Before World War I, almost all housing in the UK was built by private developers (albeit with some notable municipal exceptions in major cities). Given this, it is unsurprising that both quality and consistency of delivery were variable.

The post-war introduction of subsidies for councils to solve the blight of slum estates was supposed to right a wrong and – in the words of then-prime minister David Lloyd George – provide “homes fit for heroes”.

The so-called Addison Act – the very first housing act passed in this country, named after its sponsor Dr (later Lord) Christopher Addison – received royal assent exactly 100 years ago this month.

It may never have achieved its aspiration of delivering 500,000 homes (something that may sound familiar to modern-day watchers of government housing policy) but it was the start of a movement.

New estates began to crop up across the country, built in accordance with recommendations from the Tudor Walters Report, which was produced to parliament in November 1918. This built on the ‘Garden City Principles’ and suggested a number of improvements to the standard of public housing. These included limiting the length of terraced-housing blocks, mandating a minimum number of rooms and providing indoor bathrooms.

“The post-war introduction of subsidies for councils to solve the blight of slum estates was supposed to right a wrong and – in the words of the prime minister David Lloyd George – provide ‘homes fit for heroes’”

Although the abandonment of subsidy in 1921 and a change of government the following year curtailed the immediate growth of council-built housing, the seed had been sown.

This month Inside Housing celebrates the centenary of the Addison Act with a month-long series of articles looking at how it transformed the social fabric of the country and created the housing sector we know today.

Over the course of this month, we visit four estates, each symbolising a different era of council housebuilding. We also take a look at whether new-found financial freedom for local authorities could be the catalyst for a new generation of estates.

To kick off the series, acclaimed social historian John Boughton visits one of the first estates made possible by Lord Addison’s historic legislation: Sea Mills in Bristol. We then travel to Stevenage to look at how the damage to Britain’s inner cities during the Blitz led to the new town movement and a fresh wave of estates through the 1950s and 1960s.

Martin Hilditch, editor of Inside Housing, takes a trip to Hulme in Manchester to examine how the private and public sector had to work together in the 1980s to deliver a regeneration project, which is still thriving more than 30 years later.

Finally, we go to Nottingham and look at one council with grand ambitions to provide housing to a new generation of tenants.

There may still be myriad challenges to face when it comes to providing good-quality, genuinely affordable housing for those most in need, but without the passing of an act of parliament 100 years ago, the sector we work in today may never have come to exist. That alone is worth celebrating.

To read more about the act, go to: www.insidehousing.co.uk/AddisonAct

More on the Addison Act

More on the Addison Act

How George Clarke is aiming to end the housing crisis with his new TV show Architect George Clarke has long been a passionate campaigner for more – and better – council housing. As Inside Housing celebrates 100 years of the Addison Act, Martin Hilditch meets a man on a mission

100 Years of Council Housing: your tweets from week three Our favourite #100yearsofcouncilhousing tweets from the past seven days as our Addison Act activity moves into its fourth week

Nottingham's new wave Robyn Wilson goes to Nottingham to see what the next generation of council homes are set to look like.

If we’re going to have another 100 years of council housing, Right to Buy has to go The Right to Buy is having a devastating effect on the availability of council housing in this country and must be scrapped, writes Lee Sugden

What next for council housing? To celebrate the centenary of the Addison Act, Inside Housing asks a group of housing experts what can be learned from its legacy (sponsored)

Thatcher's legacy: a brief history of the Right to Buy An engine for social change or a handbrake on council development? We look at why the Right to Buy is as divisive as ever #ukhousing

A history of council housing: a timeline From the Addison Act to prefabs, slum clearance and the Right to Buy, council housing in the United Kingdom has a long and colourful history. Carl Brown looks at how it has evolved over time

Council housing: the key to a more equitable and dynamic society As the 100th anniversary of the Addison Act approaches, we publish an abridged extract of a book by Chris Matthews chronicling the history of council housing in Nottingham

Addison’s framework was scrapped but its legacy is more important than ever The fortunes of council housing have ebbed and flowed ever since Addison’s programme was abruptly halted in 1921, writes Jules Birch

Hulme: the redevelopment project that changed regeneration The redevelopment of Hulme in Manchester kick-started a new approach to regeneration in the UK – and the careers of some of housing’s best-known figures. Martin Hilditch joins them on a step back in time with lessons for today.

100 Years of Council Housing: your tweets from week two We pick our favourite #100yearsofcouncil housing tweets over the past week

Memories of council housing: the human legacy of the Addison Act As the centenary of the first council houses approaches, Peter Apps hears from some of the people who have lived in them in the decades since

Many of the sector’s current leaders began their journeys in council teams One hundred years of council housing has delivered a generation of sector leaders as well as millions of council homes, writes Mervyn Jones

Stevenage: home of the new town revolution Stevenage was the first of the post-war ‘new towns’. Gavriel Hollander visits the town to see how it has changed.

100 Years of Council Housing: your tweets from week one Inside Housing has been encouraging councils to say what they are doing to build homes and to mark 100 years of council housing. Here we feature a selection of your tweets

Kit Malthouse: 'Council housing is coming back with a vengeance' Housing minister Kit Malthouse tells Martin Hilditch why growing numbers of councils are looking to get back into development

Sea Mills: we visit one of the first estates to benefit from the Addison Act Social historian John Boughton visits a place in Bristol still cherished today

The Housing Podcast: is council housebuilding about to make a comeback Nearly 100 years after the introduction of the Addison Act, which kick-started the building of the first council estates in the UK, the Housing Podcast team examines the state of council housebuilding today

Why the 100th anniversary of the Addison Act should spark a council housing comeback Let’s make 2019 the start of a renaissance of council housing, writes Martin Hilditch

Are new borrowing freedoms sparking a revival of council housebuilding? The Addison Act marked the birth of council housebuilding. A century later, could recent financial freedom spark a renaissance? Nathaniel Barker investigates.

How Cornwall is taking inspiration from Christopher Addison Cornwall Council is one of many keeping the legacy alive, writes Kate Kennally.

The Addison Act - celebrating 100 years of council housing This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Addison Act – which paved the way for council housebuilding on a large scale. Inside Housing has a whole month of special activity planned and we want to hear your stories

The 100-year anniversary of the Addison Act means it’s time to talk about council housing Let’s use the 100th anniversary of council housing as we know it to flag up some of the great work that’s been done – and kick-start a conversation about the future, writes Martin Hilditch

London must recapture the housebuilding ambition of the Addison Act Councils are committed to development but are still facing unfair restrictions, writes Darren Rodwell of London Councils

Marking 100 years since the ‘Addison Act’ Professor Mark Swenarton writes about the Homes Fit for Heroes Centenary Conference

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