Ed Miliband sees real homes, real change in Doncaster

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The NHC was pleased to meet with Shadow Climate and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband MP on a recent visit to see green home upgrades carried out on council homes managed by St Leger Homes in Doncaster.

 NHC Executive Director (Policy and Public Affairs), Brian Robson joined Mr Miliband and colleagues from the ALMO and City Council on a visit to homes in the Wheatley and Armthorpe area of the city, which are benefitting from a Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund-backed scheme to install external wall insulation.  The upgrades will make homes warmer, cheaper to heat and green energy ready.

Commenting, Brian said:

“It was good to meet with Ed and to see for ourselves the great work NHC members are doing to deliver real change to real homes. I was keen to stress to him the importance of an ambitious, long-term, devolved energy efficiency programme which would enable our members to keep this great work going and ensure more homes benefit.  In his Shadow Cabinet role, Ed was also keen to understand more about our sector’s plans to roll-out clean heat solutions, and to be briefed on the recommendations of the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury. Huge thanks go to St Leger Homes and City of Doncaster Council for ensuring that this influential local MP saw these works for himself.”

The NHC is keen to share further examples of green home upgrade schemes with local MPs and Peers. If your organisation would like to work with us to organise a visit, please contact Jo Wilson (Head of Policy) at joanne.wilson@northern-consortium.org.uk

Get involved in making the case for Real Homes, Real Change – send us your case studies of completed retrofit projects

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Next month we’ll be launching our Real Homes, Real Change showcase, a document which demonstrates the fantastic work NHC members have been doing to upgrade existing homes to meet the net zero challenge across the North. The publication highlights the difference these upgrades have made, and asks decision-makers to work with us to keep this progress going: delivering more Real Homes, Real Change with an ambitious, long-term, devolved programme of investment.

We’ll be demonstrating what councils and housing associations are already doing to deliver warmer homes, lower bills and make homes green energy ready. This activity has grown massively in recent years, and bringing examples together in one place will be a strong illustration of the high level of ambition and innovation in the region, and will support our calls for further investment.

Alongside the document, we’ll be launching our ‘Real Homes, Real Change’ webpage which brings together even more real life examples of the fantastic projects our members have delivered to create warmer homes, lower bills and to cut carbon. A selection of these examples will be showcased in Parliament with a call to invest in ‘Real Homes, Real Change’, making the case that with over 7million homes across the North, and one-quarter of the North’s emissions coming from domestic sources, we have to upgrade the North’s existing homes in order to meet net zero.

We want to demonstrate to policy makers that the North’s social housing sector is leading the way, and that this great work is beginning to reach scale, however, we need decision-makers to back the North with an ambitious, long-term, devolved programme of investment, so that we can deliver even more real change to real homes. This will be a key NHC ask in the run-up to the General Election and beyond.

How can you get involved?

Please send us your case studies. Help us make this case by sending us a case study of your completed retrofit projects, telling us about the project, the impact and lessons learnt. These will be showcased on our website and shared across social channels throughout the summer.

We want to focus the case studies largely on housing retrofit and the transition to clean home heating technologies but also looking to cover the wider sustainability agenda (in any tenure).

Please email Josef Bews to submit your case study.

 

 

 

Digital tenants academy

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A group of local authorities, ALMOs and Housing Associations are developing a Digital Tenants Academy, to upskill and raise awareness in tenants. The aim is to assist tenants to engage on a more level playing field with landlords either formally through scrutiny or other engagement mechanisms or informally. This will have the potential to enhance effective engagement and influence, but also a range of other personal spin off benefits for some tenants.

The plan is that the Academy will have a range of modules available, and that the content will evolve over time to remain current and to cover the issues that matter.

There are a number of LAs and HAs on board, but we would be interested to hear from any organisation interested in contributing to the Academy, either through contributions to any of the modules, resources or indeed getting involved in any other way.

If you would like to hear more, please contact Nigel Johnston, our Head of Business Improvement -nigel.johnston@northern-consortium.org.uk

NHC and Mayor Brabin discuss housing in the North

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 Northern Housing Consortium Chief Executive, Tracy Harrison, met West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor, Tracy Brabin, last week to discuss the challenges and opportunities for social housing in the North.

They discussed opportunities around net zero, and the great work members have been doing so far – plus the good green jobs it can bring to our region. They also covered the challenges around the Local Housing Allowance, which are particularly affecting people in parts of West Yorkshire and the work we’ve been doing to get government to look at it again.

Mayor Brabin is already working with social housing providers as part of the West Yorkshire Housing Partnership and is committed to building new social and affordable homes in the area. We are following up on a number of exciting opportunities following the meeting, and we will involve relevant members and update you further as this is brought to life.

We are also delighted to announce that Mayor Brabin will be one of our keynote speakers at this year’s Northern Housing Consortium Summit. The Summit will be held in Leeds on Thursday, 9 November – so save the date in your diary! More details will be out soon.

NHC launches Pride in Place Project in Partnership with Members

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We may not hear about ‘Levelling Up’ as much as we used to, but the underlying principles of the agenda remain. Indeed, ‘Pride in Place’ has proven to be one of the more resilient ideas found in the Levelling Up White Paper published little over a year ago. All political parties are developing their own policies to tackle local inequalities and restore the social fabric of communities. Whilst Party Manifesto’s may be a little while off yet, much will be place-based, and people-centred.

The local dimension of inequality is very much the focus of politicians, policymakers, and academics all looking to improve areas perceived as ‘left behind’, grappling with issues like civic identity and an areas’ ambitions. A welcome legacy of the White Paper is the space that has opened up for community anchors to think differently about their roles in communities, and the intertwining issues of improving housing quality, regenerating town centres, and how all this corresponds to residents’ sense of pride or belonging.

Here at the NHC, we’re working with members to ensure that housing, and housing providers, are valued in this work. After all, housing providers have a central role to play in working collaboratively across areas and sectors to support thriving neighbourhoods, including empowering and working with communities directly.

That’s why we’re pleased to announce the launch of the NHC Pride in Place Project alongside Blackpool Coastal Housing, Karbon Homes, Livv Housing Group, MSV Housing Group, and Yorkshire Housing. Inspired by the innovative work of the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury, we’ll be engaging directly with residents across the North explore with residents the relationship between their home, how they feel about their neighbourhoods, and the potential for collaboration between landlord, tenant, and other stakeholders to make tangible contributions to boost pride in place at the neighbourhood level.

In the coming weeks and months we’ll be sharing more about the project and it’s research. To keep up to date, visit the NHC’s dedicated Rebalancing Webpage:

https://www.northern-consortium.org.uk/influencing/rebalancing/

Consultation on the Infrastructure Levy

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Blog by Rob Loughenbury, Director of Strategy Onward Homes

 

Consultation is underway on the details of an Infrastructure Levy that will replace Section 106. How should housing associations respond?

Social housing has greeted plans to introduce a new Infrastructure Levy with a slightly weary ‘if you must’. It will replace Section 106, the imperfect, but workable, way contributions are secured from housebuilders to pay for affordable housing and other infrastructure needs arising from development.

The big idea behind the Levy is to give local planning authorities more freedom around raising and spending money from development. Councils will be able to set different Levy rates for different kinds of development and collect it in a big pot available for infrastructure, as well as potentially for services or even to subsidise tax cuts. Revolutionary stuff.

The Levy will be a new sales tax, applied after a development is delivered, rather than negotiated at the outset. This will remove (some kinds of) negotiation from the planning process, as fixed rates mean the contribution is clear at the beginning and can be factored into land deals and viability planning. Of course, expect levy rates to be a new excuse for blood letting during local plan making.

What’s the catch?

There is real danger here for our sector. Around 78% of S106 is currently spent on new affordable homes. Despite some soggy promises to the contrary from Government, few people expect that a similar proportion of Levy proceeds will be spent in the same way, up against hot competition for funding from new roads, surgeries and schools.

But realistically a number of horses have bolted. Government is committed to introducing the Levy  and is prioritising giving councils freedom on how money is raised and spent. A consultation is underway on the nuts and bolts but will not revisit or unpick the principles. Another consultation will follow but this is the one that matters.

Responding to the consultation

So what is the best thing for housing associations to say in response to the consultation?

If contributions from development are heading into a big pot, it is in our interest first to make that pot as big as possible, and second to get as much from it for affordable housing as we can.

Maximising developer contributions can be done by including as many different kinds of development in the Levy system as possible; small developments, warehouses, commercial, permitted developments. Lots of these don’t contribute, or don’t contribute much, to S106 currently. Money is leaking from the system and this is a good chance to hoover up more. This is precisely what Government is hoping will happen. We should heartily agree.

But maximising the proportion of Levy receipts that councils spend on affordable housing will be tougher. Councils will get more freedom to spend as they wish, come what may. In response, we should argue that Levy proceeds must be used to support capital investment, not to subsidise revenue based decisions (services, tax cuts). Council finance officers will murmur consent.

Chunks of income are earmarked for elsewhere, including a rather nebulous ‘administration fee’ and a ‘neighbourhood share’ for parish councils, or similar. These should be as small as possible. Only parish councils with a Neighbourhood Plan addressing affordable housing need should get anything.

A ‘right to require’ is proposed, where councils will get the freedom to require an in kind provision of affordable homes instead of cash. This should become a ‘requirement to require’ so that a percentage of Levy income is automatically converted into affordable homes where there is evidence of unmet local need, tied into the numbers in the local plan.

The clock is ticking

The punchline is that a series of pilots and a staged implementation stretching over several years is foreseen. We should argue that a full roll out must not happen until the pilots are complete and assessed – even for Councils who just want to get on with it –  so we can see how this all works in practice. Meanwhile, a new government may or may not be elected with ambitions for planning reform. The whole process could be junked and off we go again.