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Industry News Editor’s comment


News Editor: Patrick Mooney patrick@netmagmedia.eu


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Safety and security issues should be paramount


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


The ease with which tenants can be evicted from their homes in the private rented sector and on-going concerns over the safety of tenants’ homes should focus the attention of our national and local politicians like no other. In fact the recently published report ‘Building for our future: a vision for social housing’ from Shelter’s cross-party Commission, should be essential reading for all politicians and policy makers with even the slightest interest in housing, our economy and social cohesion. The Commission was formed in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and has taken its time talking to thousands of people up and down the country and deliberating over tons of evidence and statistics. Therefore its findings should be taken very seriously and used to shape the national agenda, irrespective of the ongoing confusion surrounding Brexit. In summary the commissioners recommend we build 3.1 million new social homes over the next 20 years and establish a new regulator focused on safeguarding tenants and ensuring standards of rented housing are fit for a modern age. The report makes a compelling case for both. The commissioners argue politicians cannot remain idle at a time when half of our nation’s young people have no chance of ever buying a home, private renters on lower incomes spend an average of 67 per cent of their earnings on rent, and almost 280,000 people in England are homeless.


MEANINGFUL SOLUTIONS Their solution is a 20-year housebuilding programme designed to offer a social home to all those who fail to qualify under the current system. They have costed this in detail and worked out the programme pays for itself over a 39-year period because of lower rents, a lower benefits bill and increases in economic activity. Those specifically helped include: 1.27 million homes for those in greatest housing need – homeless households, those living with a disability or long-term illness, or living in very poor conditions; 1.17 million homes for ‘trapped renters’ – younger families who cannot afford to buy and face a lifetime in expensive and insecure private renting; and 690,000 homes for older private renters – people over 55 struggling with high housing costs and insecurity beyond retirement. There is an understandable focus on the plight of Millennials – those born in the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s who are facing a whole heap of pressures, as a result of actions by the baby boomers’ generation. But the commissioners recognise housing is not just a numbers game. They rightly point out the need for a new regulator – who listens to tenants and whose priority is ensuring their homes are safe and that they receive good standards of service. Sadly the current regulatory system does not truly operate in the interest of tenants. Instead we have a regulator which focuses almost exclusively on value for money (but not from a tenant’s perspective) and on how housing association boards operate. It virtually ignores the millions of tenants living in council housing and those in the private rented sector, as well as the thousands who are homeless through no fault of their own.


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FIRMER ACTIONS REQUIRED The Government’s allocation of just £2.4million to more than 50 councils for them to take firmer action against rogue landlords falls woefully short of what is needed in the way of additional resources. The Local Government Association is also asking for councils to be given powers to establish more local licensing schemes of private landlords. Down in Kent we see controversial landlord Fergus Wilson is starting the process of mass evictions so he can sell his buy-to-let property empire, while in London the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire has gone into a state of hibernation, while core participants wade through the more than 200,000 pieces of evidence before it resumes some time in the next 18 months. The fact that families of the bereaved, survivors of the fire and others directly affected by it are still waiting for some sort of closure a year and a half after the tragedy is an unimaginable horror. Over the winter we have seen, read and heard about more personal disasters linked to accidents in people’s homes, underlining the importance of health and safety and highlighting that it’s not ‘red tape’ or unnecessary bureaucracy. Instead it’s a matter of life and death and something we should not pennypinch over. It really is time for the Government to take proper ownership of resolving problems, like the time it is taking for high rise tower blocks to be re-clad in safe materials. One of the few bright points of recent months has been the news that the development of new affordable homes by housing associations has picked up. We need to see this continue, for the numbers to expand and for this growth to be extended to councils. We also need to see reforms delivered to Universal Credit. Currently it accounts for many failed tenancies and evictions across all types of rented housing, blighting the lives of those who the Shelter Commission wants to help and support. The Government has been provided with a blueprint for solving this, but will it run with it?


HOUSING MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE


FEB/MAR 2019


Commission demands 3.1 million new homes


Another UC u-turn


Grenfell Inquiry on pause


£1 billion TA bill


Homeless deaths – shocking rise


Patrick Mooney Pro-active roof


asset management Dean Wincott of Langley Waterproofing Systems explains the benefits of implementing a full roof asset management plan. See page 43


Dean Wincott of Langley Waterproofing Systems explains the benefits of implementing a full roof asset management plan. © High Level Photography Ltd, commissioned by Langley Waterproofing Systems Ltd


See page 43 4 | HMM February/March 2019 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk On the cover...


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