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Social Housing Green Paper action plan expected in September, May reveals
An action plan for implementing the Social Housing Green Paper is expected in September, the prime minister will reveal on Wednesday.
In her speech at Housing 2019, Theresa May will outline a timetable for the green paper, which aims to deliver more high-quality social housing, encourage better tenant rights and ensure landlords demonstrate they have acted on concerns.
The green paper, released in August last year, proposed league tables for social housing providers, but these are now thought to be unlikely to be introduced.
It also proposed “sharper teeth” for the Regulator of Social Housing to intervene to “ensure social homes are well managed and of decent quality”.
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In her speech, the prime minister will also call for the current national space standards for new housing developments to be made mandatory. Ms May will say that additional laws are necessary to ensure new homes are of a high quality.
The coalition government introduced national minimum space standards for new homes in 2014 but said local authorities could choose whether to apply them.
Ms May will say that this has resulted in an uneven playing field, leaving “tenants and buyers facing a postcode lottery”.
She will tell the conference: “I cannot defend a system in which owners and tenants are forced to accept tiny homes with inadequate storage, where developers feel the need to fill show homes with deceptively small furniture and where the lack of universal standards encourages a race to the bottom.”
The speech is part of Theresa May’s attempt to build up her legacy before she leaves her post as prime minister on 24 July.
This included an announcement on Tuesday morning that the government would implement higher accessibility standards for disabled people on all new homes built across the country.
