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The Week in Housing: Sir Keir Starmer’s vision for housing, the sector’s biggest builders revealed and a week of learning
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Good afternoon.
A week in which the sector gathered for the annual Housing 2024 conference in Manchester started with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer outlining his housing vision in this piece for Inside Housing.
The polls suggest a Labour victory next week, but for whoever gains power, sorting out the UK’s housing crisis has to be a top priority. Inside Housing’s Biggest Builders survey this week reveals not just who has built the most homes across the UK and the tenures they are building, but – with the G15 already sounding warnings about starts – it reveals detail about forward pipelines, too.
Labour has pledged to tackle some of the capacity issues faced by housing associations and councils and it will have to deal with a situation where, as Vicky Savage, executive director of development at L&Q, says in our feature, “the sector simply does not have the funds to build as much as we want and need to”.
Inside Housing introduced its new development panel – made up of senior development figures from the social landlords that have delivered the most homes for social rent in recent years – this week to find out what they think needs to be done if the UK is to build a new generation of social rent homes.
In a major speech at Housing 2024, and 10 years on from his seminal housing review, Sir Michael Lyons warned that the failure to build enough housing has “betrayed a generation”. It’s difficult to disagree.
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In Scotland, a drop-off in housing completions was blamed on the UK government’s cuts to certain budgets by Scottish housing minister Paul McLennan. The Scottish government cut funding for its affordable housing budget at the end of last year, before declaring a housing emergency earlier this year. The SNP’s manifesto has called for the UK government to devolve housing benefits to expand the delivery of social housing in its election manifesto.
In Wales, Hafod Housing revealed its future development plans after securing a new loan.
Our research shed further light on the struggles of many councils – and the impact this is having on people’s lives – with a major investigation into how accessible councils are for people who are experiencing homelessness and are approaching in-person to get help. Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, tweeted that the piece revealed how “housing options is no longer a public service in many parts of England. It is instead a service hidden from or inaccessible to the public.”
If the sector has been looking to the future with thoughts of the new government, then who is going to be guiding and shaping that future within the sector? As part of Inside Housing’s 40th anniversary celebrations this year we launched our 40 Under 40 list of the outstanding individuals under the age of 40 who are already making waves in prominent roles or demonstrating exceptional promise – in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It was the highlight of the week for me at Housing 2024 to introduce the final list of 40 people (from more than 300 entries received). Congratulations to SNG, which had more people on the shortlist than any other landlord, and Newport City Homes, which dominated the field in Wales.
40 Under 40 is part of Inside Housing’s new Housing Hires campaign, designed to promote the sector as a place to work and communicate how it plays such an important role in society. But the campaign also pledges to identify skills gaps within the sector that may hinder its progress and look at ways of filling them (the jobs fair at Housing 2024 is one example of this).
It’s an issue that has also been on the mind of Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chief executive of L&Q. In a session at Housing 2024, she warned that to achieve its housebuilding ambitions, the next government will need to work across departments to address the skills shortage – saying that a lack of engineers and scaffolders is holding back fire safety remediation efforts.
And other big landlords revealed details of their spending and balance sheets this week. Peabody revealed that it has more than doubled its spend on its existing homes. And Notting Hill Genesis posted a deficit of £82m due to, among other things, building safety costs and asset impairments.
In the East Midlands, housing association Tuntum regained its G1 rating from the Regulator of Social Housing. The Black and minority ethnic housing association appointed Charmaine Simei as chief executive in October 2023 – read our interview with Ms Simei here.
And change could be on the way for two of the sector’s major players in England, with Bromford and Flagship revealing their merger plans.
And this week also saw the British Property Federation publish a code of governance aimed at for-profit providers, while the Shared Ownership Council launched a consultation on a new code of good practice for shared ownership.
And finally, the week ended with the announcement of the winners of this year’s Women in Housing and Housing Heroes Awards.
Martin Hilditch, editor, Inside Housing
Editor’s picks
Sir Keir Starmer: my vision for housing
Inside Housing names ‘40 Under 40’
Homeless and on hold: the battle to get support from councils
Karbon Homes chief executive: ‘Professionalisation would cost at least £1m a year’
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