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Short on time? Friday’s housing news in five minutes
A round-up of the top stories this morning from Inside Housing and elsewhere
Top story: Housing bodies demand ’levelling up’ of housing funding for the North in Budget
With less than two weeks to go until chancellor Rishi Sunak unveils the Budget, housing bodies are calling for changes to the way the government funds affordable housing in the North.
The Northern Housing Consortium has said that the current formula government uses to fund affordable homes is a “blunt tool” and puts arbitrary restrictions on areas in the North.
Currently 80% of all of the government’s five key housing funds concentrate on areas of ‘high affordability pressure’ – defined as areas where private rents exceed social rents by £50 or more a week on average.
Sinead Butters, chair of PlaceShapers, echoed the call saying the country needs “a wholesale UK housing offer”.
Rough sleeping drops by 9%, official single-night survey finds
The number of rough sleepers in England has fallen for the second year in a row, according to data from a one-night survey carried out by the government.
The survey estimated that 4,266 people had slept rough on a single night in autumn last year, a 9% drop on the 4,677 counted on the same night in 2019.
The government also announced that it was to set up a review into the causes of rough sleeping, which is to be led by Dame Louise Casey, and an additional £236m in extra funding has been given to tackle the issue.
Lunchtime long read
Pictures: Alamy and Getty
As Rishi Sunak prepares the Budget, there is a wave of lobbying being carried from a wide range of sectors trying to secure cash from the government giveaway on 11 March.
The housing sector is no different. Here James Wilmore sifts through the Budget submissions of the sector’s biggest bodies and charities to see what they really want to see in the 2020 Budget.
Quote of the day
“On the face of it, on many issues, the government’s aims and the sector’s asks seem to be aligned, too. Unfortunately, identifying your goals is the easy bit. Legacies look great in advance. The tricky bit, and where David Cameron and Theresa May failed comprehensively, is delivery.”
Inside Housing editor Martin Hilditch explains the difficulties often found with trying to deliver on big promises.
In the papers
Picture: Getty
The BBC reports on a new study that shows there has been a spike in mental health problems among unemployed people due to issues linked to the roll-out of Universal Credit. It found the number of people with psychological distress rose 6.6% between 2013 and 2018.
This represented an extra 63,674 people in England, Wales and Scotland, with 21,760 of them becoming clinically depressed.
The Guardian has a heart-breaking story which reports on a letter written by a disabled man who starved to death after his benefits were cut off, in which he pleaded with welfare officials to “judge him fairly”.
Errol Graham died of starvation in 2018, just months after welfare officials stopped his out-of-work housing benefits. He weighed just four and a half stone when he died. The letter describes how illness turned Mr Graham into a withdrawn anxious person for whom daily life became a torment.
Local news
Picture: Getty
Bromley Council has committed to building an additional 600 homes a year to help deal with the boroughs housing shortage, the News Shopper writes.
The council has also committed to building 1,000 new homes as soon as possible to meet the homeless and housing need. Bromley Council has stated that this could be on council-owned land or in joint ventures with private developers.
A council leader in Swansea has criticised planning inspectors after they overturned a decision to stop properties in Swansea from being converted into house shares, the BBC reports. Rob Stewart, leader of Swansea Council, said that it was wrong that undemocratically elected people were being given the power to overturn a decision made by the local authority.
Swansea Council is trying to stop the use of houses of multiple occupancy in the city. Earlier this year it turned down a plan to turn one property into a seven-room flat, but this was overturned by the planning inspectorate.
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