Rents set to ‘skyrocket’ due to government’s new Housing Act
Councillor Glanville, Cabinet Member for Hackney Homes and Regeneration Estates. Photograph: Hackney Council
Rents are set to “skyrocket” and the council will be “forced to sell off hundreds of homes” due to the Housing and Planning Act, Hackney’s housing chief has warned.
Councillor Philip Glanville said the controversial Act, which received Royal Assent last Friday “will be hugely damaging to the social fabric of inner London boroughs like Hackney”.
The Housing Act has been subject to a barrage of criticisms from campaigners, who argue it will lead to ‘social cleansing’ due to the forced sale of social housing and the extension of right-to-buy.
The Act forces councils to sell off high value vacant local authority properties to fund the extension of the government’s right-to-buy scheme to housing association tenants.
It also introduces ‘pay to stay’ charges for tenants in council houses earning more than £40,000 per household a year in London.
Campaigners argue the Act will lead to the loss of social housing, as well a decline in the availability of affordable housing.
Cllr Glanville, who has campaigned vociferously against the Bill since it was first introduced, said: “It does nothing meaningful to address the capital’s housing crisis, improve the stability or affordability of private renting, or deliver on the homeownership aspirations of residents.
“As it stands, Hackney Council will be forced to sell off hundreds of homes to private buyers and many of our tenants could see their rents skyrocket.
“There will be far fewer genuinely affordable properties built on new developments, fewer homes available for struggling families living in temporary accommodation, and the council will end up paying millions of pounds to cover various extra housing costs.”
Cllr Glanville says the Housing and Planning Act will force Hackney Council to sell up to 700 council homes over the next five years, with proceeds going to the government to cover the extension of Right to Buy to housing associations.
He predicts that Hackney Council will have to spend an extra £18 million a year on housing costs to support the likely increase in the number of families in temporary accommodation.
Cllr Glanville said he would continue pushing the government to alter details of the Act to “help address the needs of Hackney and our aspiration to keep it one of the most vibrant, diverse and dynamic boroughs in the country”.
But the government’s Housing and Planning Minister, Brandon Lewis, called the Housing and Planning Act a “landmark” piece of legislation that “will help anyone who aspires to own their own home achieve their dream”.
“It will increase housing supply alongside home ownership building on the biggest affordable house building program since the 1970s,” he said.
“The Act will contribute to transforming generation rent into generation buy, helping us towards achieving our ambition of delivering one million new homes.”
Why hasn’t Hackney Council said anything about
what it will “do” to challenge the
Social Cleansing Agenda?
By refusing to carry out the whole range of
additional social cleansing measures the
Social Cleansing Statute ‘makes’ Councils do?
Is that failure due to the tacit deal with the DCLG
and other Departments that
the Councils WILL CARRY OUT
THE AGENDA but by making “sensitive”
local-friendly noise “criticising” the Agenda?
Unless the “Cabinet Member for
Hackney Homes and Regeneration Estate”
spells out the contents of his “pushing” the Government, the reader is
left uncertain as to WHAT Hackney Council is actually doing to
democratically, sustainably and ethically destabilise the Socially Cleansing.
That is the only way that the Social Cleansing Programme will be stopped.
It needs to be stopped and it must be stopped. NOW
But not by making platitudinous statements
1140 Hrs GMT London Friday 20 may 2016
Councillor Glanville, as a contributor to the Lord Andrew Adonis “City Villages” report published by the IPPR, is fully in favour of redevelopment as a money earner for Local Authorities. He weeps crocodile tears for the existing residents the Local Authority as landlord and freeholder clears from its own land. Local Authorities will award themselves planning approval for schemes that capitalise on their assets in their substantial “brownfield” freeholding on the business model of the aristocratic Great Estates. That was explicit before the Housing and Planning Bill that Glanville helped to amend, and that all through its passage in the Houses of Commons and Lords the Labour Party actively shaped to suit their own interests. Labour Local Authorities, and Glanville’s among them, sought discretionary powers to licence Private landlords. These are the fee paying “good landlord” clients that Glanville hopes to sell the redeveloped estates and existing stock to. If he complains about an extension of the Right to Buy a leasehold it is only because this government has made Glanville’s job of issuing Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) to new leaseholders a little bit harder. But as the 18 estates that Glanville has already comprehensively redeveloped in Hackney show, reducing tenants to short leases, evicting tenants, and issuing CPOs is what his Local Authority already does. Glanville did not need the extra powers in the Housing and Planning Act. But now he has them, along with his discretionary planning powers, he will use his new powers to the full. Even while crying crocodile tears in public as a “radical opponent”. Although dealing with the City’s well funded institutional landlords in his capacity as Cabinet Member for Homes and Regeneration. The City is after 10% return. Glanville is after the developers profit of 20% and the planning gain that Local Authorities negotiate. Hackney will live off the ground rents and enjoy the appreciating asset. All he has to do is not burst out laughing on his way to Hackney Council’s bank.
I don’t live in London, But why don’t the councils and Housing Associations take the matter to court? See if it is legal what they are doing, If the council owns the property i cant see how this corrupt Government can MAKE them sell them off. It would be worth a punt. Everything else they are doing is turning out illegal, Even them being in number 10, it would seem. No one else would be able to make you give them something that is yours.
What is it with these tory toffs keep harping on about buying property??? It isn’t everyone’s dream and get in the real world…’affordable homes’ isn’t affordable on an apparently ‘high ‘ income of £40k. Homes in Islington are at least £400K and that’s for a 1 bedroom. So tell me how I get a mortgage for that! And how about the 50+ age group that have lived in their council home that actually won’t be able to get a reasonable mortgage? Why would anyone wants to tie themselves up with over 20 years of debt. I am sick of hearing Cameron going on about aspiring to own property. ..that may be in his world but he is quite frankly in another world. This Bill is patronising to hard working London born families that keep this City ticking over. The pay to stay is an insult and basically yet another tax. This is socal cleansing at its worst. We will see the workhouses back soon!
essentially – you object to licensing of private landlords and think they should be free to carry on exploiting nd abusing tenants through substandard overpriced accommodation
all the rest is guff
I am saying that the licensing of private landlords by public landlords with the legal power to declare some “rogues” and others “good” will turn into a racket mired in local politics through the Housing and Planning Act 2016. As for Glanville’s views about the Local Authority becoming the developer he has written them clearly enough in the IPPR’s City Villages report, and stated them in public meetings when challenged about his 18 estate redevelopment projects. After all the Local Authority is a Municipal Corporation which is controlled by the councillors. Only with the power to award itself planning approval in a way that any private developer will envy.