A report said that housing issues did not fit neatly with the typical thematic partnership structure of local strategic partnerships (LSPs). Local councils needed to consider whether their existing LSP structure was providing adequate opportunities for discussing and addressing housing needs, and the contribution that housing services could make to wider neighbourhood and economic issues.
Source: Matthew Warburton, Implications of the New Local Government Agenda for Council Housing, HouseMark (024 7646 0500)
Links: Report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2008-Dec
The government published the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill. The Bill was designed to place a duty on local councils to 'promote democracy' and monitor local economic conditions; make it a legal duty for them to respond to petitions; and provide for the setting-up of a 'National Tenant Voice' to ensure that tenants' views were 'central' to housing decision-making.
Source: Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL], Department for Communities and Local Government, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Text of Bill | Explanatory notes | DCLG press release | CPRE press release | NLGN press release | LGA briefing | RSN press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2008-Dec
A report said that housing could enhance economic performance and place competitiveness: but it could also lead to segregation and spatial concentrations of poverty. Too often, however, housing investment had taken place in isolation from the wider economic context. The report called for a research programme to explore how different types of investment in housing and 'quality of place' affected economic outcomes across a typology of different spatial areas.
Source: Catherine Glossop, Housing and Economic Development: Moving forward together, Housing Corporation (020 7393 2000) and Centre for Cities
Date: 2008-Nov
A report by a committee of MPs said that the government should scrap its house-building target (of 3 million new homes by 2020) and use the market downturn to put the environment at the heart of housing policy.
Source: Greener Homes for the Future? An environmental analysis of the government's housebuilding plans, Twelfth Report (Session 2007-08), HC 566, House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | CPRE press release | Shelter press release | Inside Housing report | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2008-Nov
A report said that refurbishment was a more sustainable option for housing in run-down urban areas, compared with wholesale demolition and rebuilding.
Source: Knock It Down Or Do It Up? Sustainable house building – new build and refurbishment in the Sustainable Communities Plan, Building Research Establishment (01923 664000)
Links: BRE press release
Date: 2008-Nov
A report examined the issue of housing and migration. It called on the government to improve regulation of housing conditions in the private rented sector, and ensure a more effective housing and welfare safety net for migrants and non-migrants alike.
Source: Elizabeth O'Hara, No Place Like Home? Addressing the issues of housing and migration, Shelter (020 7505 4699)
Links: Report | Shelter press release | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Oct
A report said that the housing system was 'fundamentally broken' and needed far-reaching, wide-scale, holistic reform to deliver fair, affordable, and flexible housing in the future. It called for all new social housing tenants to be subject to regular reviews of their status – including vulnerable groups and older people. Tenants should move out of their homes or face rent increases if their circumstances improved.
Source: Rethinking Housing, Chartered Institute of Housing (024 7685 1700)
Links: Report | CIH press release | Inside Housing report (1) | Inside Housing report (2)
Date: 2008-Oct
A paper examined the strategic and policy context for housing development and neighbourhood renewal. Integrating different housing tenures was an important prerequisite for developing 'housing of choice': but there were many other aspects of sustainable communities which needed to be given equal weight.
Source: Nick Bailey and Tony Manzi, Developing and Sustaining Mixed Tenure Housing Developments, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Date: 2008-Sep
A report (by three official advisory bodies) proposed a shift in the government's programme for housing market renewal away from housing and towards a broad-based, design-led regeneration programme, with 'placemaking' at its centre.
Source: Housing Market Renewal: Action plan for delivering successful places, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (020 7960 2400), English Heritage, and Sustainable Development Commission
Links: Report | CABE press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2008-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs said that it was too early to judge the overall success of the Housing Market Renewal Programme (designed to tackle the problems of neighbourhoods with acute low housing demand in the north of England and Midlands). But sustained regeneration would require improvements which went beyond the regeneration of the physical infrastructure – such as local economic performance, employment opportunities, community safety, and access to high-quality public amenities and transport.
Source: Housing Market Renewal: Pathfinders, Thirty-fifth Report (Session 2007-08), HC 106, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Jul
A report examined the impact of housing policies and practices on environmental sustainability.
Source: Christoph Sinn and John Perry (eds.), Housing, the Environment and Our Changing Climate, Chartered Institute of Housing (024 7685 1700)
Links: CIH press release
Date: 2008-Jun
The Department for Communities and Local Government published its annual report for 2007-08.
Source: Community, Opportunity, Prosperity: Annual Report 2008, Cm 7394, Department for Communities and Local Government, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-May
A report said that devolution had accentuated pre-existing differences in housing policies between Scotland and England. Although the Scottish Parliament had embedded higher aims for policy in extensive new legislation, it had not matched these aspirations with either the expanded resources or the grant system efficiencies that had prevailed in England. Scotland needed to develop a housing market policy that promoted efficient and stable choices rather than specific tenures, and to assess the possibilities for more effective methods of securing unearned land value gains for affordable housing purposes.
Source: Duncan Maclennan and Tony O'Sullivan, Housing Policies for Scotland: Challenges and changes, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Date: 2008-May
The Scottish Government published a report of responses to a discussion paper containing proposals to improve supply, quality, and choice in Scotland's housing.
Source: Valerie Strachan, Firm Foundations: The Future of Housing in Scotland – An Analysis of Responses, Scottish Government (web publication only)
Links: Report | Summary | SG press release
Date: 2008-Apr
A new book examined the rationale for housing market renewal; whose interests were served by it; and who lost out. Housing market renewal played to the interests of the middle classes in viewing the market for houses as a field of social and economic 'opportunities', in contrast to a working class who were more concerned with the practicalities of 'dwelling'.
Source: Chris Allen, Housing Market Renewal and Social Class, Taylor and Francis (020 7583 9855)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Apr
An article examined the effects of housing tenure on individuals' job and unemployment durations. Home-ownership was a constraint for the employed, while public renting was more of a constraint for the unemployed. Employed home-owners had a lower transition into employment with a distant move, and unemployed public renters had a lower probability of gaining employment in more distant labour markets.
Source: Harminder Battu, Ada Ma and Euan Phimister, 'Housing tenure, job mobility and unemployment in the UK', Economic Journal, Volume 118 Issue 527
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Mar
The government published a summary of responses received to the Green Paper on housing (published in July 2007.
Source: Homes for the Future: More Affordable, More Sustainable – Summary of Responses to the Housing Green Paper, Department for Communities and Local Government (0870 1226 236)
Links: Consultation responses | Green Paper
Date: 2008-Feb
