“There can be no renaissance of council housing if existing homes are allowed to deteriorate”

There is a question mark hanging over the future of council housing. 109 Councils signed the document “Securing the Future of Council Housing”, which warned that “Unless something is done soon, most council landlords will struggle to maintain their existing homes adequately or meet huge new demands to improve them, let alone build new homes for social rent.”

This warning has been reinforced by a survey by Southwark Council which reported that “two thirds of council housing budgets are on the brink of collapse”, at risk of being unable to set a balanced budget by the next general election. “Years of financial strain have forced councils across the country to reduce their maintenance of council homes, cancel new build projects and even sell off existing housing stock.”

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The survey was answered by 76 stock-owning councils, cross-party, with 870,000 homes. It found that

• 9 in 10 council housing budgets are under financial stress, taking or expecting to need to take substantial action or use emergency funds to balance their books by 2029;
• 71% of councils expect to cancel, pause or delay current projects;
• 68% expect to scale back their overall commitments to redevelop or build new council homes;
• 28% expect to sell off existing council homes to make ends meet.

Of particular concern is the idea of councils selling off existing stock “to make ends meet”. When previous governments sought to transfer council housing stock to housing associations, tenants had the right to ballot. Yet tenants have no say in relation to piecemeal sales of vacant council homes. What sense does it make to sell off homes when increasing numbers are in temporary accommodation which is costing councils a fortune? Selling existing homes will mean people staying on the waiting list longer.

Keiron Williams, Leader of Southwark Council said that “the fast implementation of many of our report’s reforms…gives us hope for the future of council housing”. However, the key demands of “Securing the Future of Council Housing”, increased funding and a reopening of the 2012 ‘debt settlement’, have not yet had a response. (See The case for cancelling council housing ‘debt’) Councils estimate that they need £12 billion over 5 years to bring all of them up to the Decent Homes Standard, £23 billion to decarbonise them all, as well as increased funding for new build.

Keiron said:

“The upcoming Government Housing Strategy presents a major opportunity to give council landlords the headroom and the confidence to invest in the homes our country needs – addressing the scourge of homelessness and unlocking growth, jobs and security across the country.”

The Housing Strategy which Keiron refers to is expected to be announced at the same time as the Spring Spending Review, pushed back to June. In the months up to then, pressure needs to be brought to bear on the government to make council housing its first housing priority, providing the funding to improve existing homes and make the step change in building/acquiring new ones.

We need to lobby MPs and council Leaders to press them to demand of the government the funding necessary to improve existing homes and build/acquire on the scale of 100,000 homes a year, which Labour conferences have voted for. (See our Briefing on the issues we need to lobby them on briefing-re-labour-policy.pdf)

This July will mark the 80^th anniversary of the election of the 1945 Labour government. Under far worse economic conditions than we face today, the Atlee government launched the NHS and the welfare state, and built one million council homes. That government decided that homes for rent were the first priority, and councils were given the funding to build them. Bevan tripled the grant.

Today the 123,000 households in temporary accommodation and 1.3 million households on the waiting list require social rent council housing to liberate them. There can be no renaissance of council housing if existing homes are allowed to deteriorate and millions are left imprisoned in the expensive and often poor quality private rented sector.