Hull City Council has today joined with England’s other largest council landlords – including Southwark, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham and Dudley – to jointly publish five solutions for the new government to ‘secure the future of England’s council housing’.
Back in March, Directors from this cross-party group of 20 local authorities gathered at a Summit to address an increasingly urgent financial crisis. Ahead of their full report release later this year, authored by independent consultants Toby Lloyd and Rose Grayston, this interim release summarises their recommendations.
The report warns that England’s council housing system is broken, and its future is in danger. An unsustainable financial model and erratic national policy changes have squeezed their budgets and sent costs soaring. New analysis from global estate agents Savills shows that councils’ housing budgets will face a £2.2bn ‘black hole’ by 2028.
Unless something is done soon, it reports that most council landlords will struggle to maintain their existing homes adequately or meet the huge new demands to improve them, let alone build new homes for social rent. Across the country development projects are being cancelled and delayed, with huge implications for the local construction sector, jobs. and housing market.
Rather than increasing supply, the reality is that some councils will have no option but to sell more of their existing stock to finance investment in an ever-shrinking portfolio of council homes.
Their recommendations include urgent action to restore lost income and unlock local authority capacity to work with the new government to deliver its promises for new, affordable homes throughout the country.
The five solutions set out detailed and practical recommendations to the new government:
- A new fair and sustainable Housing Revenue Account (HRA) model – including an urgent £644 million 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
They make up a plan for a ‘decade of renewal’, with local authorities and central government working together to get ‘Housing Revenue Accounts’ (HRAs) back on stable foundations, bring all homes up to modern and green standards, and deliver the next generation of council homes.
Cllr Paul Drake-Davis, Portfolio Holder for Regeneration and Housing at Hull City Council, said:
“The country’s largest council landlords have come together because we see every day how council homes transform people’s lives for the better. In Hull and nationwide, for many families their council home is a foundation – giving them the security needed to put down roots, flourish in childhood, get on at work, stay healthy and age well. In our city and elsewhere erratic policy choices have left council housing finances completely broken and the system’s future is in danger.
“We are releasing this interim report now because we, England’s biggest council landlords, want to work with the new government from day one to deliver the more and better council homes that our communities require. Urgent action is needed now to put our national council housing finances back on firm foundations. The five solutions set out in the report show how we can work together to achieve this, and to secure council housing for generations to come.”
