Housing in Practice: Taking a proactive approach to section 106
Neil Merrick reports on a housing association that’s agreeing section 106 deals ahead of builders putting spades in the ground. The residents’ story Towards the end of last year, the first shared owners began moving into homes at Victoria Riverside, a multi-million-pound development in central Manchester. The 128 shared ownership apartments, owned by L&Q […]
Behind the headlines
By Nicola Lambe, Head of Specialist Services, Stonewater When headlines share progress for domestic abuse survivors, it’s tempting to assume the problem is being solved. New refuges, improved pathways and partnership working all sound encouraging, and indeed, they are. But scratch beneath the surface and a more complex picture emerges, one that reminds us that […]
The last word
With politics in turmoil, we must keep making the case for housing By Hannah Fearn, freelance journalist specialising in social affairs When I first suggested the topic of this column back in February, Westminster was in turmoil. The chances of Keir Starmer retaining the keys to Number 10 after May’s local elections were […]
Does the secretary of state know what the Regulator of Social Housing is for?
By Rob Gershon, Associate, HQN Last week, the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote this letter to the Chair of the Board of the Regulator of Social Housing, Bernadette Conroy, and its incoming chief executive, Jonathan Walters, who will be familiar to any regulator-watchers […]
A life in 15 questions
Guy Marshall Director, Fuza Ltd 1 What do you do for fun? Run in the hills. 2 You have the power to change one thing about the social housing sector: what would it be? The relationship between UK government and how the UK provides decent homes that people can afford. I see […]
Ombudsman Corner
By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman In recent months I’ve been asked whether mould was a ‘grey rhino’ event. In risk management speak, this is the opposite of the ‘black swan’: a visible problem overlooked. The answer is yes. And faulty roofs, windows, overheating or loss of heating could replace damp […]
How open and transparent data can support implementation of the Decent Homes Standard in private rental housing
By Dr Michael Marshall, Research Associate in Quantitative Analysis and Geographic Information Systems, School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. Improving the quality of England’s rental homes is an important societal objective. Poor-quality and cold housing is a major health risk, associated with accidents in the home, increased blood pressure and asthma. A […]
Gambling harms in LGBTQ+ communities: Why it matters, and how Recover with Pride is changing the landscape
By Ben Howard, Gambling Harms Service Manager, Switchboard Gambling is often framed as an individual issue, but the evidence is now unequivocal: for LGBTQ+ communities, gambling harm is shaped by structural inequality, minority stress and gaps in culturally competent support. A growing body of UK research makes clear that this isn’t a niche […]
My Home, My Life: Older Bangladeshi tenants in social housing
By Dr Manik Gopinath, Senior Lecturer in Ageing, The Open University England is home to a growing, ethnically diverse older population. Yet we know remarkably little about minority older adults’ experiences of housing. The Amar bari, amar jibon (My Home, My Life) study set out to make this visible, co-producing research with 76 […]
From downsizing to rightsizing: Under-occupancy and overcrowding in social housing
By Dr Mahmoud Alsaeed, Research Associate, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge, and Professor Gemma Burgess, Director, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge. Across the social housing sector, under-occupancy and overcrowding are often treated as separate issues, with one framed as inefficiency and the other as […]