Cross-party push launched to secure future of council housing

A number of Midlands councils are joining a cross-party coalition of more than 100 council landlords, to publish five solutions for the government to ‘secure the future of England’s council housing’.

Led by Southwark Council, the coalition will launch the Future Council Housing report to urge the government to deliver its housing promises and fix the council housing system at an event held in Westminster today (Sep 3).

Birmingham City Council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Leicester City Council, Nottingham City Council, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and the City of Wolverhampton Council joined 16 other councils to publish an interim summary of their recommendations in July.

An urgent meeting was then held with the Deputy Prime Minister and another 80 councils backed their recommendations and signed the final report.

The five recommendations to the new government:

• A new fair and sustainable HRA model – including an urgent £644m one-off rescue injection, and long-term, certain rent and debt agreements.
• Reforms to unsustainable Right to Buy policies
• Removing red tape on existing funding
• A new, long-term Green & Decent Homes Programme
• Urgent action to restart stalled building projects, avoiding the loss of construction sector capacity and a market downturn

The detailed report, led by Southwark Council has contributions from housing policy experts Toby Lloyd and Rose Grayston. It sets out a full roadmap to renew the country’s council housing over the next decade and critical policy changes for the realisation of the new government’s social housing ambitions.

National policy changes and an “unsustainable” financial model have squeezed council housing budgets and increased costs. A new analysis from Savills shows that they will face a £2.2bn ‘black hole’ by 2028.

The coalition is warning that unless action is taken, most council landlords will be unable to maintain their existing homes, or meet demands to improve them and will have no option but to sell stock.

Cllr Stephen Simkins, Leader of City of Wolverhampton Council, said: “Wolverhampton is a proud council landlord and recognise the value our 22,000 council homes contribute to our communities. Our priority has always been to create a better housing offer and service for people living in our city – but we need more support to ensure our residents have decent and affordable homes.

“Our new government has committed to delivering the biggest increase to affordable and social housing in a generation. The Deputy Prime Minister’s recent announcements demonstrate that they know the critical role councils will play in reaching this ambition. However, the reality is that our national council housing finances are on the brink.

“These five solutions offer the new government an opportunity to turn this around – lifting the council homes we have up to modern, safe, healthy and green standards, and delivering the thousands more council homes that our country urgently needs. By investing in them together, we can transform lives for the better for generations to come.

“It is important we have robust delivery plans to accelerate housing development and improvements that will support inclusive economic growth and focus on people and our plans to support our residents by creating good homes in well-connected neighbourhoods.”