Twenty of England’s largest local authority landlords call for the new government to save council homes
The Royal Borough of Greenwich has 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 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 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 Anthony Okereke, Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, “As one of the largest council landlords in England, we know all too well how broken the system is when it comes to council house funding.
“Day in and day out families come to us needing our help, but we just do not have the homes to help everyone, even though we are building 1,750 new council homes, the most in a generation. The remaining ones need big improvements to bring them up to the standards that our residents deserve – at a very high cost.
“We need a radical rethink in how council houses are financed in England to enable local authorities like ours to be able to ensure people can have safe and secure homes that meet their needs.
“We look forward to working with the new government to finally secure the future of council housing in this country”.
Cllr Pat Slattery, Cabinet Member for Housing Management, Neighbourhoods and Homelessness, said: "We’re delighted to be working with 20 of the largest social landlords in the country on a report to secure the future of council housing.
“We want to work with the new government to support them in their wish to build 1.5m more homes in this parliamentary term.
“Council housing is a key part of that as it is the most affordable housing and we need that here in Greenwich, and we need it across the country.”
Read the 'Securing the Future of Council Housing' interim report.