The Government has set out a new strategy to tackle England’s housing shortage by breaking the current cycle in which lenders won’t lend, builders can’t build and buyers can’t buy. At the heart of the strategy is a new-build indemnity scheme that should give a helping hand to up to 100,000 prospective buyers frozen out [...]
government
UK housing challenges on red
Government ministers have been presented with a “traffic light” system to help them engage with the UK’s housing challenges. The National Housing Federation (NHF), housing charity, Shelter, and the Chartered Institute of Housing say they are holding ministers to account on broken promises over housing supply, homelessness and affordability in the private rented sector. In [...]
Squatting to be criminalised… finally!
Handing over our petition to criminalise squatting
Regular readers will be aware of our campaign to criminalise squatting. In April, we presented our initial petition to 10 Downing Street calling for squatting to be criminalised.
Yesterday, the campaign took a big step forward, with the government committing to criminalise squatting as part of the new Justice Bill. It is great that everyone is now talking about squatting and seeing how it affects property owners. However, there is still a very long way to go.
Before any plans to fully criminalise squatting become an act of law, there will be consultations to discuss ideas about how squatting should be criminalised. Often, brazen proposals go through an undressing in these stages to try and get to a regime that stakeholders are satisfied with.
It is for this reason that it is so important to keep the pressure on decision makers in Westminster to ensure that squatting is criminalised in a way that is satisfactory to property owners – the ones who are the victims of squatting.
We don’t want any ridiculous law that overly burdens homeowners with red tape and administration when trying to get rid of squatters. What we do want is an efficient regime for law enforcement to evict squatters quickly and at minimal cost.
That is why we are keeping our Criminalise Squatting petition open until squatting is officially a criminal offence. If you have not signed the petition yet, please do so. And, encourage others to as well.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has lost a court battle over his decision to scrap the last government’s regional housing targets in England
Eric Pickles housing move ‘unlawful’
Eric Pickles said he wanted to return power to local authorities
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has lost a court battle over his decision to scrap the last government’s regional housing targets in England.
The move was ruled unlawful by the High Court.
Housing developers had asked the court to block it, arguing Mr Pickles had abused his powers.
Mr Pickles had said he wanted to return planning powers to local communities. An aide said that no appeal was planned.
The ruling means that controversial plans for building thousands of new homes in each English region could be back on – but a government source said the court ruling was only a “technicality” and would not change anything.
That is because legislation will be published next month that will deal with the issue, he suggested.
‘Parliamentary democracy’
Housing developer Cala Homes (South) Ltd argued that Mr Pickles was wrongly seeking to revoke regional planning strategies through discretionary powers.
Mr Justice Sales, sitting in London, ruled that the Cala Homes argument was “well founded”.
“What today’s judgement identifies is that he (Mr Pickles) wasn’t entitled to make the decision in the way that he did” Ian Ginbey Cala Homes’ lawyer
The developer argued primary legislation should have been introduced, giving MPs the opportunity to debate an issue crucial to future planning in England.
It claimed Mr Pickles’s decision “struck at the heart of parliamentary democracy”.
The government argued that regional strategies were made by regional assemblies, an undemocratic tier of regional government, and this undermined directly elected local authorities.
Ian Ginbey from Cala Homes’ lawyers, Macfarlanes, said the legal challenge to Mr Pickles’s decision “wasn’t an attack on localism at all”.
But he said scrapping the targets without anything to replace them had “left a policy vacuum, caused confusion throughout the industry and directly resulted in proposals for tens of thousands of new homes being abandoned”.
He conceded that the High Court ruling might only succeed in delaying the scrapping of the targets until next autumn, when planned new legislation is likely to come into effect.
‘Embarrassing questions’
But he said it could mean that many housing developments rejected on appeal since the targets were scrapped in July could now be back on the cards.
“What today’s judgement identifies is that he (Mr Pickles) wasn’t entitled to make the decision in the way that he did,” Mr Ginbey told BBC News.
“We will work with local communities to build more homes” Bob Neill, Local Government Minister
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said the decision to get rid of the targets was “a hasty and damaging move, which has already seen plans for over 180,000 homes scrapped”.
Shadow communities secretary Caroline Flint said the court ruling “raises embarrassing questions about the way Eric Pickles ripped up plans for desperately needed new homes”.
She added: “The coalition’s housing policies are doing little to meet the aspirations of the hundreds of thousands of families who want to live in a decent home.”
The court’s decsion was welcomed by the Home Builders’ Federation which said it would help local authorities plan new housing developments using the old targets while a new “locally-based” planning system is put in place over the next two years.
But junior communities minister Bob Neill said it “changes very little”.
“Later this month we will be introducing the Localism Bill to Parliament, which will sweep away the controversial regional strategies.
“Top-down targets don’t build homes – they’ve led to the lowest peacetime house-building rates since 1924.
“The government remains firmly resolved to scrap this layer of confusing red tape.
“Instead, we will work with local communities to build more homes. This was a commitment made in the Coalition Agreement and in the general election manifestos of both coalition parties. We intend to deliver on it.”
The court heard Mr Pickles decided in July to revoke the regional strategies, which include house-building targets, introduced under the 2009 Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act.
James Eadie QC, who represented the Communities Secretary, argued in court that Mr Pickles had power to revoke the entire regional strategy tier of planning policy guidance and was entitled to do so as it was not operating in the public interest.
Mr Pickles has been at the forefront of the government’s efforts to decentralise power – and has fought a series of high-profile battles with quango and council bosses over alleged extravagance with public money.
Property Developers say: Zero Carbon Buildings won’t help meet emissions targets as Government ignores existing stock
- The country’s biggest property developers have welcomed government plans to introduce zero carbon commercial buildings from 2018, but have warned that carbon reduction targets will be missed unless existing buildings are tackled.
Property giants including British Land, Hammerson, Hermes, Land Securities, Legal and General. Prupim and SEGRO, who own and manage the country’s biggest shopping centres and offices, want to see display energy certificates (DECs) which clearly show the performance of building when in use, should be made mandatory for all buildings.
Patrick Brown, assistant director for sustainability at the British Property Federation, said:
“We really need clarity now given that the development process can start over a decade in advance of a brick being laid. This is a welcome consultation but the bottom line is that our 2050 target of reducing carbon emissions by 80pc will be missed unless a greater level of attention is given to existing buildings.
“The consultation prioritises energy efficiency which is a good thing since building regulations are readily understood by developers and the bar is raised over a gradual period of time. But the overwhelming focus on new buildings must be accompanied by a greater level of attention to existing stock. The majority of buildings with us now will still be in use in 50 years’ time and side-stepping the difficult questions will cause us more problems in the long term.”
Real estate is responsible for around half of the UK’s carbon emissions.
The industry however, believes government policy has ignored the fact that the majority of commercial property is rented out.
This means landlords cannot simply walk into a tenant’s shop, for example, and turn the lights off. Therefore, any incentives and responsibilities for improving energy performance are widely split between the two groups.
The BPF wants to see measurement based on actual energy use made obligatory for the private sector. This could happen by expanding display energy certificates (DECs) – which measure the operational performance of a building – so that they do not just cover public buildings. (See notes).
Property is responsible for a massive 50 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions, but one of the easiest places to make savings if data is shared and landlords and tenants work together.
Energy use needs to be made transparent if the industry has any hope of meeting green energy targets, believes BPF chief executive Liz Peace. The BPF is pushing for EU law to be changed so that landlords and tenants will be obliged to share energy data. If this happens, then both sides can work together to support real change.
However, Peace admits there is a critical need for firms to change the way they view energy and reduce usage via more effective management before looking at refitting buildings with expensive new gadgets. It is also vital to ensure that any newly installed kit delivers the promised energy and carbon savings, as there is evidence that some developments employ it at planning stage but often don’t use it properly. Essentially, it comes down to effectively measuring what is used.
Experts believe a third of energy use can be cut without any major expenditure, but want research carried out into what financial incentives could spur landlords on to undertake higher cost improvements, looking at where costs and benefits currently do not add up, when all other factors are balanced.
Despite setting up the new Department for Energy and Climate Change there has been no clear policy direction in government with various other departments all covering the same ground. A staggering 70 national and 96 regional bodies currently offer energy efficiency advice. The BPF therefore wants greater clarity on grants and advice that could help green the nation’s buildings. An array of financial benefits already exist (see notes) but few people really know about them.
Peter Clarke, executive officer at British Land, said:
“We have found that simple improvements in energy use can be made by sharing data, which often reveals that changes to behaviour can yield big savings on energy and carbon. The key barrier is that, in many cases, landlords and tenants are unaware of where the opportunities lie. The BPF’s www.les-ter.org toolkit, developed with the Carbon Trust, provides a set of tools and a process to enable landlords and tenants to measure, understand and reduce their emissions.”
Dave Farebrother, environmental director at Land Securities, which has recently announced it will voluntarily introduce DECs across its London portfolio, said:
“At Land Securities we are finding a high degree of willingness among our clients to engage on matters of energy efficiency, and as existing buildings form the larger part of the ongoing carbon problem the quickest, cheapest and biggest wins for the sector come from changing attitudes and behaviours. DECs, which reflect how buildings actually operate, are much more helpful in this regard than a theoretical EPC.”
Bill Hughes, managing director at Legal and General Property, said:
“There is a clear desire at all levels for greener buildings, but this won’t be achieved by focusing exclusively on new build and it won’t be achieved unless the government begins to understand how the market in existing property actually works. Designing new efficient buildings is relatively easy, but without a government-backed initiative to manage down energy use in old stock, targets will remain aspirations.”
Martin Moore, chairman of the BPF’s sustainability committee and chief executive of Prupim, said:
“We need to focus on methods to improve our understanding of what energy we’re actually using. Expanding display energy certificates and providing support to firms to help them measure and reduce energy use is vital. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it and if you cannot manage it, you certainly cannot reduce it.”
Claudine Blamey, head of sustainability at SEGRO, said:
“The most significant amount of carbon used during the life of a building is in its use phase. At the moment there are no real drivers for occupiers to reduce their energy. We need incentives to change behaviour if we are going to become a low carbon economy.”
Notes for editors
General background
The government will fail to achieve an overall reduction in total UK carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 compared to 1990s levels.
The government is due to produce a big policy paper later in the year on how it intends to deliver these savings. This will be based on consultations like this Heat and Energy Saving Strategy report and the advice of a body called the Committee on Climate Change, composed of independent experts and led by Adair Turner (at the moment).
As buildings account for around half of UK and European emissions, the property industry can most likely bank on having to make sizeable emissions reductions. Certainly the prevailing direction of policy would suggest it.
In its report, the Committee on Climate Change advised the Government to pretty much decarbonise the energy supply in this country. There are significant issues with that, not least the ones experienced by developers who are essentially having to build power stations next to developments. Many want to see a proper national energy strategy to manage the transition to such a low carbon energy supply. In any case it will take time – and so energy efficiency is important to manage energy demand and emissions until we make that transition to low carbon energy supplies.
The adoption of DECs in the private sector could:
• expose the benefits of better management and motivate users to make improvements;
• tackle existing as well as new non-domestic buildings;
• at relatively modest cost, offer recommendations for improvement;
• incentivise local generation or onsite renewable energy production;
• offer a comparison with the rating for the building’s EPC would act as a neat barometer of ‘potential’ versus ‘actual’ energy performance, promoting understanding of this issue; and
• assist in the generation of a database of true building energy performance, which would lead to better policy.Awareness among possible beneficiaries of Government fiscal support is limited. A report by Element Energy detailed that the following percentages were previously aware of the fiscal support mechanisms listed below:
• Landlord’s Energy Savings Allowance (LESA) – 19%
• Enhanced Capital Allowances (ECA) – 22%
• 5% VAT on energy efficient purchases – 57%
• Grant from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme – 49%
• Climate Change Levy Exemption – 46% - Downloadable documents
Zero Carbon – 443kB.
Developers urge Government to stop dithering as Flood Bill is welcomed
- The trade body representing major property developers has welcomed the floods bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, urging ministers to stop consulting and deliver some firm action before the general election.
The British Property Federation (BPF) also expressed concern at the lack of extra funding, but said that giving the Environment Agency more power to act on flood risk would help by offering a greater degree of clarity over who is responsible.
The bill includes plans to tackle surface flood risk and encourages developers to implement sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDs). However, issues over viability could make development and house building more costly if such measures are demanded inappropriately.
The BPF is worried that councils do not have the necessary skills to deal with many of these measures and that the proposals do not take account of viability, in terms of the land required or the cost. For instance, in dense urban areas such as Westminster, it would be impossible to build a large pond to drain water and in many places SUDs would be too costly and push up the price of homes.
Liz Peace, chief executive of the BPF said:
“Landlords and insurers are still likely to have reservations over the government’s funding commitment for flood defences. While the proposals will go some way to reducing risk, what we need to see an end to this obsession with consultation and some real action to pass these quite urgent measures.”
For more info, see the first two pages from the BPF’s draft floods and water bill response.
Contact Andrew Teacher on 020 7802 0113 or ateacher@bpf.org.uk
- Downloadable documents
- Draft Floods and Water Bill Response – 229kB.
Thousands of Home Owners and Utilities at Risk from further flooding
Home owners devastated by the floods of 2007 and previous years still at risk and growing concerns surface for public utilities including electricity, water and sewage service supply.
Another year gone by and little or nothing has been done by government to address the flooding problems
The following two BBC articles illustrate the extent of the problem:
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has rejected claims by a committee of MPs that Britain’s flood preparations are in a “chaotic state”.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee said the UK is still not prepared for the sort of flooding which hit much of the country last summer.
And it warned an extra £800m pledged to improve readiness was not enough.
Mr Benn said the government was already taking action in many of the areas identified in the report.
More than 55,000 homes and businesses across central, northern and South West England were devastated by last year’s floods, which killed nine people and left an insurance bill of about £3bn.
‘Confused and chaotic’
In its report, the select committee said there had been a “total lack of awareness” about how vulnerable many parts of the country were to flooding before the downpours.
“The public will not forgive the government if it is not seen to be responding to the lessons learnt from the floods of last summer,” said Michael Jack, the committee’s chairman.
“Our report has shown how confused and chaotic was the infrastructure when it came to preventing and dealing with surface water flooding.”
The report said flood defence measures have been focused almost solely on river and coastal defences, with plans to cope with heavy rainfall in an “unclear and chaotic state”.
No organisation had responsibility for dealing with surface water at a local or national level, and when drains began to overflow it was hard to see who was responsible for the drainage system, the committee said.
Planning changes
Ministers had repeatedly suggested the £800m a year for flood management by 2010/2011 would allow the government to deal effectively with future crises, the committee said.
But the settlement for flood defences made under the Comprehensive Spending Review was “far less impressive under close analysis”, it added.
Mr Benn said he “welcomed” the committee’s report but said action was already being taken to improve readiness for another major incident.
Changes to the planning laws would make it more difficult for homeowners to “concrete over” their front gardens – which he said was one of the causes of surface water flooding.
“The truth is that if we concrete over, pave over, tarmac over ground in our towns and cities and it rains like that then the drains get overwhelmed and the select committee recognises that,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
“And what we need to sort out – what we had already recognised – is clarity of responsibility for making sure that the bits of the surface water drainage system fit together.”
Spending ‘doubled’
The right of new developments to automatically connect to the public sewerage system was also being reviewed, he added.
And the environment agency had been given “overall responsibility” for dealing with flooding and there was now a “single chain of command”.
Walham electricity switching station had a close escape after last summer’s floods
He denied there was a shortage of funds for flood defences.
“We’ve doubled the spending on flood defence in the last ten years.
“We’re increasing it by about another two hundred million pounds a year by 2010-11.
“Last summer, the Association of British Insurers said we should be spending about £750m a year by 2010-11 – actually we’re going to be spending £800m – and that’s going to mean the environment agency has more money to spend on more flood defence schemes to protect more peoples’ homes.”
Meanwhile, a confidential government study seen by the BBC suggests hundreds of UK power substations and water treatment plants are potentially at risk from flooding.
The report warns that “there are likely to be hundreds of sites at the highest levels of criticality” and says that “the risks posed by natural hazards are already rising and are predicted to rise further”.
It concludes that it would “be imprudent to rest on the basis that events on the lines of those which happened last summer were so infrequent as to reply on a reactive response alone”.
Most homeowners hit by last summer’s floods remain unprepared for a repeat, an insurance company survey suggests.
Some 83% of residents of Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Hull, Sheffield and Rotherham believe there is nothing they can do to protect their homes.
Of 1,500 people surveyed for Norwich Union, 95% had not secured their properties ahead of the threat of further flooding this summer.
A total of 29% also were unaware that their homes were at risk again.
Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were worst hit by last year’s floods, which the Association of British Insurers says led to 180,000 claims totalling about £3bn.
Mary Dhonau, chief executive of the National Flood Forum, said: “Having been flooded myself, I know what an awful experience it can be.
“The findings of this report have shocked me because there is so much more people can do than using the humble, not to mention ineffective, sandbag.
“As someone who has witnessed the huge benefits of flood-resilient repairs, I’m a huge advocate of taking measures to protect your home.
“Adapting or altering your home can significantly lessen both the practical and emotional impact of flood.
“Not only can damage to your personal possessions and furnishings be reduced, you could be back in your home quicker after a flood if you have to move out at all.”
Flood defences
Simon Black, head of flood mapping at Norwich Union who produced the survey, said: “We believe that everyone has a responsibility to help reduce the risk of flood damage.
“That includes the government, with continued investment in flood defences, and the homeowner.
“While home insurance will protect people from the majority of costs caused by flooding, no insurance policy can replace those significant personal belongings with sentimental value.
“Similarly, no policy will be able to spare families the inconvenience and stress of being forced from their homes while it is being dried out and repaired.”
Flood protection for houses includes flood boards for door frames in case of flash floods, one-way valves on water outlet pipes and water-resistant sealants around doors, window frames and on bricks and mortar.
