An article examined the importance of tenure-specific housing market areas (HMAs) for housing planning within the existing policy frameworks aimed at meeting housing needs. The case for a national system of tenure-specific HMAs based on migration was found to be unproven: nevertheless, such HMAs could provide the basis for meaningful affordability measures and a tool to address segregation and reshape housing markets in cities.
Source: Colin Jones and Mike Coombes, 'An assessment of tenure-specific housing market areas for housing planning', Housing Studies, Volume 28 Number 7
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Dec
A report called for an increase in the supply of social rented and affordable housing. It outlined a role for local authorities and arms length management organizations in building up to 60,000 additional homes over five years, and called for the borrowing cap on local authority borrowing to be lifted.
Source: John Perry, Let s Get Building: The case for local authority investment in rented homes to help drive economic growth, National Federation of ALMOs
Links: Report | Summary | LGA press release
Date: 2013-Dec
A report by a committee of MPs said that the Code for Sustainable Homes had worked alongside building regulations since 2007 to embed a degree of sustainability in the building of new homes. It recommended that the government should rethink its decision to 'wind down' the code following its review of housing standards.
Source: Code for Sustainable Homes and the Housing Standards Review, Eighth Report (Session 2013–14), HC 192, House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | UK-GBC press release | BBC report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Nov
A think-tank report examined the barriers to home ownership. The report said that the existing United Kingdom system of land and property taxation could be improved, although some of the claims made for property and land taxation were unsupported by the evidence. It called for changes to the planning system and a commitment to building 300,000 new homes each year from 2015 to 2020, including one garden city.
Source: , Taxing Issues? Reducing housing demand or increasing housing supply, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Nov
An article examined how the local authority in Birmingham, England had incentivized private sector developers to build homes for sale in challenging areas with a weak housing market. The article considered how 'build now, pay later' models might reduce levels of risk in development and increase building starts by private sector developers.
Source: Clive Skidmore, 'Housing as a driver for economic growth: lessons learned from Birmingham City Council', Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, Volume 7 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Nov
A survey examined the intentions of councillors in 45 stock-retaining councils to build new council housing through the Housing Revenue Account. It found that 93 per cent planned to build new homes, but aspirations were relatively modest – most councillors hoped to build up to 1,000 homes over the next decade. New build council housing was the main investment priority (60 per cent), followed by 'decent homes' (18 per cent).
Source: Does Council Housing Have a Future? A Smith Institute opinion survey of councillors in England with lead responsibility for housing, Smith Institute
Links: Report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Nov
A think-tank report called for increased numbers of new build shared ownership properties, to enable greater affordability of home ownership for low and modest income households. It called on government to remove existing regulations and restrictions on shared ownership properties and to encourage additional private sector investment into the sector.
Source: Vidhya Alakeson, Hannah Fearn, and Giselle Cory, One Foot on the Ladder: How shared ownership can bring owning a home into reach, Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Resolution press release | Guardian report
Date: 2013-Nov
A housing strategy for London was published for consultation. Its proposals included: seeking greater autonomy for the Greater London Authority to raise and retain property taxes and to borrow; new low cost home ownership homes and more affordable rented homes; giving greater priority to working households in social housing allocations policies; accelerating delivery of new build housing with high design standards and appropriate space standards; and working towards improving the existing housing stock. The consultation would close on 17 February 2014.
Source: Homes for London: The London housing strategy – draft for consultation, Greater London Authority
Links: Consultation document | Mayor of London's press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Nov
A think-tank report examined the prospects for institutional investment in building for rent, looking at where and how build to rent might work, advantages for tenants, investor returns and key challenges.
Source: Vidhya Alakeson, Katie Blacklock, Sandra Halilovic, Tim Rothery, and Nick Salisbury, Building Homes for Generation Rent: Can institutional investment meet the challenge?, Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Summary | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Oct
A report by a committee of MPs said that it was essential to evaluate the outcomes of the new homes bonus, following the change from grant-based to incentive-based funding. The report said that the government's planned evaluation was urgently required.
Source: The New Homes Bonus, Twenty-ninth Report (Session 2013-14), HC 114, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | DCLG response | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Oct
A think-tank report discussed the supply of housing for older people. The report suggested that a shortage of supply was likely and considered the issues around supply and demand.
Source: Claudia Wood, 'A New Generation of Retirement Housing Could Set Off a Property Chain Reaction...': The top of the ladder, Demos
Links: Report | Demos press release | Guardian report
Date: 2013-Oct
A report examined housing supply issues in the west midlands of England. It reported a strong consensus on the need for more homes to be built and found numerous examples of collaborative efforts to improve supply. Participants said that intervention was needed to change the cost and availability of land for development. The report noted further areas of discussion and an intention to conduct further investigation.
Source: Homes for the Next Generation: Lessons from the West Midlands, KPMG/Shelter
Date: 2013-Oct
A briefing paper examined the housing market renewal pathfinders. It discussed the establishment and purpose of the pathfinders, detailed the government expenditure on them, and outlined the research on their effectiveness.
Source: Wendy Wilson, Housing Market Renewal (HMR) Pathfinders, Standard Note SN/SP/5953, House of Commons Library
Links: Briefing paper
Date: 2013-Oct
A report called for the application of information-age digital technologies to improve the quality and value of housing. It proposed a system of 'home performance labelling' to provide better information to potential purchasers and aid the comparison of different properties.
Source: Ben Derbyshire, Housing for the Information Age: Empowering consumers to drive change in the industry, Housing Forum
Links: Report | Summary | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Oct
A report summarized the interim results of an evaluation of a scheme designed to bring empty residential properties or commercial buildings back into use as homes for rent or sale.
Source: Will Eadson, Stephen Green, Kesia Reeve, David Robinson and Ian Wilson, Houses into Homes: Second interim evaluation report, Research Paper 61/2013, Welsh Government
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Oct
A report considered the size and quality of the council housing sector in London and the prospects for renewed council building programmes to address the problem of insufficient supply.
Source: Right to Build: What's stopping councils from building more housing?, Greater London Authority
Links: Report | GLA press release
Date: 2013-Oct
The government announced the introduction of a 'tenants' charter', aimed at encouraging longer fixed-term tenancies and raise standards in the private rented sector. Tenants would be able to request longer tenancies, avoid hidden fees, and demand a 'fair deal' from their landlords and letting agents. A model tenancy agreement, developed with the sector, would clearly set out the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords, and provide an industry benchmark for written tenancy agreements. The charter would require greater transparency about lettings agents' fees. A new £1 billion Build to Rent Fund and £10 billion of government-backed guarantees would encourage institutional investment in the sector. The government would encourage mortgage lenders to allow buy-to-let borrowers to offer longer initial fixed periods in their tenancy agreements.
Source: Press release 1 October 2013, Department for Communities and Local Government
Links: DCLG press release | Guidance note | Guardian report | CIH press release
Date: 2013-Oct
A commission on housing in Scotland was launched. The commission would take evidence from the property profession, the not-for-profit housing sector, investors, developers, stakeholders, and public interest bodies on issues including supply, need, affordability, design, and the role of the private rented sector. The commission would take evidence until 18 November 2013 and would then prepare a recommendations report for the Scottish Government, political parties, and policy-makers and practitioners across the sector.
Source: Press release 14 October 2013, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Links: RICS press release | Commission questions | List of commissioners
Date: 2013-Oct
A report set out 15 measures to boost housebuilding where it was most needed in England and Scotland. The recommendations focused on five 'pinch points' – community engagement, land, infrastructure, finance, and leadership and governance.
Source: Joe Sarling and Richard Blyth, Delivering Large Scale Housing: Unlocking schemes and sites to help meet the UK s housing needs, Royal Town Planning Institute
Links: Report | RTPI press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Sep
A report examined the potential for delivering new settlements in England as a means of addressing the housing shortage.
Source: Megan McFarlane and Jen Pearce (with Antonio Ciaglia, Darinka Czischke, and Ben Pattison), Creating the Conditions for New Settlements in England, Building and Social Housing Foundation
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Sep
A report said that the scale of housing need and demand continued to significantly outstrip supply. An analysis of the 2011 Census showed that around 245,000 new houses were needed each year, compared with recent house-building of around 100,000 per year.
Source: Alan Holmans, New Estimates of Housing Demand and Need in England, 2011 to 2031, Town and Country Planning Association
Links: Report | TCPA press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Sep
An article examined the policy of allowing registered providers of social housing in England to purchase complete or partially complete private homes from developers in financial difficulties. It sought to identify key impediments to this type of transfer, including the inability of providers to acquire housing stock that did not adhere to particular 'quality standards'.
Source: Manuela Madeddu, 'Housing quality and the rescue of failed private housing schemes in England: a policy review', Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Volume 28 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Aug
A report said that a failure to build enough homes would put a 'colossal strain' on the housing market in England by 2020. A jump in the birth rate in the early 2000s, combined with a decade of insufficient house building, would leave millions of young people struggling with rising housing prices and rents, or forced to stay and live with parents.
Source: Housing Britain's Future: Some home truths, National Housing Federation
Links: Report | NHF press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Jul
A report examined the measures that could be taken to increase housing supply in the short-to-medium term – through immediately available policy levers and through more substantial reforms. It said that neither the existing housing market and supply chain, nor the existing range of announced policy interventions, were capable of delivering homes on the scale needed to meet existing demand – let alone the backlog built up by decades of undersupply. It looked at the range of alternative actions available, and the balance of choices that policy-makers faced.
Source: Matt Griffith and Pete Jefferys, Solutions for the Housing Shortage: How to build the 250,000 homes we need each year, Shelter
Links: Report | Summary | Annex | IPPR blog post
Date: 2013-Jul
An audit report in Scotland said that the supply of housing was not keeping up with levels of need. The Scottish Government needed to clarify how it would work with local councils and other partners in the sector to make sure that it met the target to provide an affordable home for all by 2020.
Source: Housing in Scotland, Audit Scotland
Links: Report | Summary | Audit Scotland press release | SFHA press release
Date: 2013-Jul
A report said that a radical overhaul of housebuilding was needed to reverse the growing housing gap that would continue to make both renting and home-ownership unaffordable. It proposed a new housing model for planning, land-acquisition, and construction: this was designed to overcome the existing disincentives to build by ensuring that local authorities, landowners, and housebuilders all benefited from more effective planning, better certainty, and suitable timelines, as well as a share of the value generated throughout the process.
Source: Revolutionising Housing: Restoring the value of land – A new model for housing development, Association for Consultancy and Engineering
Links: Report | ACE press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Jul
A study examined the strengths and weaknesses of the existing self-build housing market for individuals and groups, together with key initiatives designed to expand it. A key imperative, if volume growth were to occur, was the development of models that facilitated the entry of younger, less affluent households.
Source: Alison Wallace, Janet Ford, and Deborah Quilgars, Build-It-Yourself? Understanding the changing landscape of the UK self-build market, Centre for Housing Policy (University of York)
Date: 2013-May
A report examined the benefits of communal cross-generational housing developments. It said that the blending of families within social living arrangements could build stronger communities.
Source: Michael Keith, Cross Generational Housing, United for All Ages
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Mar
An audit report said that the coalition government was not adequately monitoring the £1.3 billion New Homes Bonus paid to local authorities in England up to 2013-14. The scheme was supposed to deliver 140,000 new homes over a 10-year period: but this estimate had been produced using 'very limited evidence', and also contained an arithmetical error. The financial risk to some local authorities was substantial because of the redistributive nature of the scheme.
Source: The New Homes Bonus, HC 1047 (Session 2012–13), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | Labour Party press release | LGA press release | TCPA press release | BBC report | Inside Housing report | Public Finance report
Date: 2013-Mar
A think-tank report said that local councils that failed to hit their own housing targets should have to release land to local people who wanted to design their own homes. It said that custom-designed homes would be more appealing to local communities because they would not be subject to controls over their appearance. The land would be cheaper, since it would be bought by an auction process and there would be fewer planning fees.
Source: Alex Morton, A Right to Build: Local homes for local people, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release | CPRE press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-Mar
The coalition government announced a system of cash incentives aimed at boosting new housebuilding in England. Local communities that took a 'proactive approach', by drawing up a neighbourhood development plan and securing the consent of local people in a referendum, would receive 25 per cent of the revenues from the community infrastructure levy arising from the development.
Source: Speech by Nick Boles MP (Planning Minister), 10 January 2013
Links: Speech | DCLG press release | BPF press release | CLA press release | Design Council press release | Labour Party press release | LGA press release | NHF press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | Inside Housing report | Public Finance report
Date: 2013-Jan
A think-tank report said that demolishing high-rise social housing blocks and replacing them with 'real streets' made up of low-rise flats and terraced housing would improve the lives of thousands of people who suffered from living in multi-storey housing. Terraced streets could exceed the housing densities (between 75 and 200 units per hectare) of most existing high-rise housing developments.
Source: Nicholas Boys Smith and Alex Morton, Create Streets: Not just multi-storey estates, Policy Exchange/Create Streets
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release | RIBA press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report | Public Finance report
Date: 2013-Jan
