Shocking new analysis, announced in a report today, shows the extent to which private renters in the North will be hit by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s net zero u-turn, announced in September.

 The government’s decision to scrap plans to force private landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties could leave over 750,000, or around two-thirds, of households living in privately rented homes in the North with higher energy bills and poorer living conditions.

The announcement means landlords no longer need to make improvements to get their rental properties to the minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C rating by 2028.

The previous proposal was to raise the standard to EPC C, meaning landlords would incur costs, paying on average £4,700 per property. The government estimated in 2020, before the energy crisis, that this would save tenants an average of £220 on their energy bills every year¹.

The findings have been published in the Northern Housing Consortium’s (NHC) Northern Housing Monitor report, an annual ‘state-of-the-region’ report for housing in the North.

Nearly two-thirds of privately rented homes fail to meet the EPC C standard and it was estimated they cost around £680 more to heat last winter compared to homes that meet the EPC C benchmark. Those living in the North West (330,000 homes) and Yorkshire and Humber (312,000 homes) regions were the most severely affected.

For the private rented sector, the report highlights that 62,000 homes in the North will need to be upgraded annually.

The Prime Minister’s announcement potentially means that many northern households will suffer as a result of living in poorly insulated and inefficient to heat homes which undermines their occupants’ current health and children’s life chances.

The NHC report also shows that rising fuel poverty is an extensive problem and is not spread equally across the country. There are 1.04 million fuel-poor households across all of the North’s housing stock – this is over 30% of the nation’s fuel-poor households.

Tracy Harrison, Chief Executive of the Northern Housing Consortium, said:

“The government’s decision to scrap plans to raise minimum energy efficiency standards will have a detrimental effect on hundreds of thousands of households across the North.

“The Prime Minister’s u-turn overlooks the existing costs of an inefficient energy system with 750,000 privately rented households in the North living in properties that are performing below band C.

“Once again, tenants living in private rented homes will face higher energy bills and live in poorer conditions, without their landlords being held to account for making improvements to their properties.

“The private rented sector accounts for more than 1 in 6 of the North’s homes, which also puts the UK’s target of reaching net zero by 2050 at risk and simply generates greater pressures in later years.”

The monitor is NHC’s account of the state of the housing market in the North of England, highlighting emerging trends and identifying the developments which are having the most significant impacts on people, homes and neighbourhoods in the North. A copy of the full Monitor is available on the NHC website at www.northern-consortium.org.uk

The Northern Housing Consortium’s (NHC) annual Northern Housing Summit took place at Aspire, Leeds on 9^th November. This annual event brings Northern housing colleagues together from government, housing providers and more to discuss the key challenges facing the sector.

 

Housing in 2030 and politics today

The Summit was kicked off by NHC’s Chief Executive, Tracy Harrison, to introduce the key focus for the Summit – housing’s vision for 2030. Tracy asked the sector to think beyond the immediate future and to see the day as a blank page on which to layout what the housing sector wants to achieve by the end of the decade.

Just two days since a King’s Speech where housing played a minor role, the Summit’s host Mark Easton, spoke on the wider political context and the possibility of a new Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer coming to power in a 2024 general election. Starmer and his top team have consistently said that they will see housebuilding as a priority in government, with a commitment to build more than 1.5 million new homes within the first Labour parliament. Mark also noted the appropriate nature of Aspire, the venue for the day, which was originally built as the headquarters for the Yorkshire Pennybank – an institution dedicated to helping working people save for to buy a home. In the midst of a housing affordability crisis, an apt venue indeed.

The Summit was closed by guest speaker, political pundit and ex-advisor to Ed Miliband, Ayesha Hazarika. Ayesha stressed the importance of the housing sector in the current political context, saying that this appears to be the first general election in her career where housing plays a key role within all of the major issues, with pundits, politicians and voters making the inherent links between housing, local government pressures, immigration, public service levels, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis. Ayesha also made it clear that the sector should be stressing to Labour that to meet their ambitious housing targets, they will need the social sector to play a counter-cyclical role to compensate for plummeting private housebuilding.

 

Devolution

Devolving power locally was a key focus of the day. NHC members were joined by Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, to discuss the merits of devolution. The Mayor discussed how the Liverpool City Region was beginning to see the fruits of the establishment of a Mayoral Combined Authority for the area, and was beginning to chart its own course. Mayor Rotheram outlined the scale of the challenge on Merseyside as to decarbonising the area’s housing stock which totals more than 700,000 homes, with over £100m of investment required to retrofit the stock effectively. One major criticism of the current devolution agenda was that that it doesn’t yet go far enough, that while it is positive that more funding can be delivered more locally, funds often come with difficult strings attached and limitations on how spending can be administered, meaning that the Authority doesn’t really have autonomy over spending – “It is decentralization, not devolution” was a common sentiment in both the Mayor’s plenary, and the subsequent devolution panel session including Karbon Homes Chief Executive, Paul Fiddman; MSV Housing Chief Executive, Charlotte Norman; Newcastle City Council Chief Executive, Pam Smith; and the Chief Executive of Connect Housing, Helen Lennon. Everybody involved in devolution discussions agreed that a single departmental-style funding settlement, with autonomy over local spending, will be the golden prize for Mayoral Combined Authorities.

 

Housing today

The state of housing in the North today was the focus of discussion during an afternoon session teasing the upcoming 2023 Northern Housing Monitor. Arc4’s Graham Long spoke through some preliminary findings and highlighted four ‘strategic challenges’ for the North’s housing sector:

• An undersupply of homes – around 44% too low in total
• Systemic unaffordability for private tenants
• Under-investment in existing homes, especially in the private rental sector
• Homes unfit for the climate

An additional focus was placed on the affordability crisis for private tenants on low incomes. The freezing of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates at 2020 levels. This year’s Monitor will show that the impact of this decision three years down the line is that only 7% of homes in the North are now let at levels at or below the LHA.

The Northern Housing Monitor will be released in full, and made available to NHC members, in December 2023.

 

Regulation

With less than six months until new consumer standards come into force in April 2024, the topic on the mind of every registered provider at the moment is the changing regulatory environment. A consultation on new, strengthened consumer standards closed in October.

Richard Blakeway from the Housing Ombudsman, Chief of Regulatory Engagement at the Regulator of Social Housing, Kate Dodsworth, and Indra Mudie – a Customer Board Member at Home Group – joined the Summit to discuss the emerging regulatory changes and some findings from the consultation.

All members of the panel stressed that landlords should have already started aligning with the new standards and the importance of strong data and the need for data systems to speak with one another. Landlord mergers and associated merging of data systems were highlighted by the Ombudsman as a possible pinch point leading to poor data outcomes and possible complaints.

Kate Dodsworth also noted that the consultation on draft consumer standards received over 1,000 responses and that, in general, responses from tenants were more positive about the new standards than landlords.

 

Pride in Place: views from Northern Communities

A new piece of research developed by the NHC and Thinks Insight & Strategy was also presented at the Summit, into how Northern communities perceive ‘Pride in Place’. This research involved speaking with residents across five different communities in the North to discuss what they thought of their local area, what issues there were and what they would like to see to improve where they live. The areas were:

• Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne
• Blackpool, Lancashire
• Knowsley, Merseyside
• Moss Side, Greater Manchester
• Skipton, North Yorkshire

The research identified significant existing pride in where people live, some consistent sources of dissatisfaction emerged as part of the work. These were:

• Access to basic services
• Sense of community decision-making
• State of the local environment

A key solution throughout the work, amongst others such as rebuilding local capacity to enact change, was that devolving power closer to communities so that those with the most investment in their area feel empowered to deliver change would be of great benefit. Residents involved in the work also greatly valued green spaces that are well managed and accessible, as well as communities having a space to host events and activities.

The full report can be accessed here.

The NHC will be in Preston this week for the This is the North Convention 2023.

 The NHC is delighted to be on the agenda at the Peoples Powerhouse This is the North Convention, taking place in Preston across the 29^th and 30^th of November. Alongside Blackpool Coastal Housing, we’ll be providing a workshop discussing the findings of the recently published Pride in Place: Views from Northern Communities. Based on workshops undertaken across the North with NHC members and their residents, the session will discuss the community view on what makes a great place to live.

Peoples Powerhouse exists to help every northerner have a voice on the decisions that affect their lives and puts the views of northerners themselves central in conversations on what the future of the North should look like. The Convention promises to bring together thought leaders, activists, and change-makers from across the North to discuss, learn, and embolden the power of citizens at a local and regional level.

With our own contribution to this vitally important discussion, Pride in Place has worked with social and private rented tenants in Benwell (Newcastle), Skipton (North Yorkshire), Moss Side (Manchester), Knowsley (Merseyside), and Blackpool (Lancashire) to understand how community power can go hand in hand with the work of local organisations like NHC members. With the final report northern communities themselves have put forward a range of recommendations, from thinking differently about how public services are accessed, how everyone can be involved in shaping neighbourhoods for the better, and identifying a range of small projects that can be championed at the local level.

At This is the North the NHC joins a stellar line up or organisations including CLES, IPPR North, Involve, and the JRF. More information can be found HERE and tickets can be accessed HERE.

Pride in Place: Views from Northern Communities can be viewed HERE.

With over 40,000 North East households on the waiting list for social housing, there’s a desperate need to rapidly build more genuinely affordable homes across the region.

A group of North East based housing providers have joined forces to tackle this crisis head on and to support the Mayoral Combined Authority to deliver the social housing the region needs.

The North East Housing Partnership (NEHP), which launched this week, is made up of 17 North East social housing providers with a strong presence in the seven local authority areas covered by the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority.

NEHP partners consist of housing associations, local authorities and arms length management organisations (ALMOs).

The partners are Karbon Homes, Bernicia, believe housing, Castles & Coasts, Gentoo, Thirteen, North Star, Home Group, Livin, Durham Aged Mineworkers’ Homes Association, Tyne Housing, Johnnie Johnson Housing, South Tyneside Homes, Gateshead Council, North Tyneside Council, Northumberland County Council, and Newcastle City Council.

Paul Fiddaman, Chair of the North East Housing Partnership, said: “As a partnership, we hold onto a simple belief that a house is more than just a roof over your head. It’s something you can build a life around. The evidence is clear that good quality homes is intrinsically linked with a number of social outcomes, such as education, health and employment, and devolution presents a significant opportunity to address these disparities and build our region better.

 “With new powers and funding, managed and delivered close to local needs, we have the opportunity to take on some of the deep-seated problems that have long held us back.

“However, to make a real success of devolution, anchor institutions across the region need to get behind it, lend their enthusiasm and expertise, and align their own work and investment with that of the new combined authority. That’s what the North East Housing Partnership is all about.”

 The partnership will be focusing on four key themes: Regeneration, development and placemaking, Net zero and sustainability, Employability and social inclusion and Health, care and homelessness.

The partners will work collaboratively to deliver significant change in these working thematic areas, within which housing provides a starting point to wider social, environmental and economic outcomes, and will work closely with the newly elected mayor and the new combined authority to support with the delivery of its priorities.

John Johnson, Vice Chair of the North East Housing Partnership, said: “Through the partnership I hope to see housing providers from across the North East shift from a group of individual organisations, working in relative isolation, to a strong and unified partnership.

 “When we invest together, work together, and plan together, we can achieve economies of scale, shape supply chains, regenerate communities, decarbonise our region, create and prepare people for jobs and support longer, healthier lives. If we align ourselves in each of these areas with the new combined authority, we can achieve even more.”

 Combined, the 17 partners own and manage over 214,000 homes in the region, housing around one in six households in the new mayoral combined authority area.

The concept of the partnership mirrors that of similar partnerships in other combined authority areas, such as the Greater Manchester Housing Partnership and the West Yorkshire Housing Partnership.