Stability and Collaboration in Housing PolicyStability and Collaboration in Housing Policy At the Housing 2024 election special breakfast, experts unanimously emphasized the need for both change and medium to long-term stability in housing policy. This stability is essential for delivering the necessary homes and improving the lives of existing residents. The incoming Labour administration must work closely with the housing sector and consider proposed solutions to make informed decisions about necessary changes. It is imperative to resist frequent policy adjustments to allow the sector to focus on providing homes. The recent instability in funding and regulation has severely impacted the housing sector. Systemic failures, in part due to inadequate long-term investment, have had detrimental effects on social housing tenants. Credit rating downgrades and reduced development activity indicate the strain faced by even the strongest organizations. As the second-largest builder in the UK, SNG is actively seeking growth opportunities but remains affected by sector-wide challenges. To fulfill its ambitious plans of building 25,000 homes, SNG emphasizes the need for a stable, long-term, 10-year rent settlement. Maintaining Consumer Price Index plus 1% is crucial to address the immediate crisis. However, openness to sustainable solutions from the sector would be beneficial. Behind the statistical data of the housing crisis lie the real lives of individuals and families facing immense struggles. The incoming government must prioritize these individuals and ensure that policy decisions are driven by their well-being.
At the election special breakfast at Housing 2024 last week, the overriding view of the panellists representing funders, planners and private developers – as well as my own view on behalf of housing associations – was that as much as we need change, we also need medium to long-term stability. Not only to deliver the homes that are needed, but to support essential improvements for existing customers.
For this to happen well, the new administration will have to work closely with the sector and be open to solutions we propose, which will help them make the right choices quickly where change is needed. Ministers must then also resist the urge to tinker so that we can get on with the job of providing homes.
Recent instability of funding and regulation has left its mark, and the signs of a sector under huge strain should be very plain to the incoming Labour team. We’ve seen the terrible impact on some social housing customers of systemic failures, at least partly due to lack of long-term funding and investment in the sector.
Even some of the strongest organisations are now seeing credit rating downgrades, or for very legitimate reasons pulling back from developing the new homes that are needed by both millions of people and the government, if it is to meet its ambitions.
“Poorly delivered housebuilding will undoubtedly generate headlines that erode political capital for housing, further reduce the trust of communities, galvanize opposition and sour progress in what must be a decades-long project”
As last week’s Inside Housing Biggest Builders survey showed, SNG is growing. But even as the second-largest builder, which is bucking the overall trend by actively seeking new sites and opportunities, we aren’t immune to the challenges the whole sector faces.
Our ambitious plans to build 25,000 homes over the next decade can only be fully realised with the stability of a long-term, 10-year rent settlement that is fair for our customers while giving providers the resources we need to deliver. At least maintaining the Consumer Price Index plus 1% is essential to stem the immediate crisis, but this is an area where openness to sustainable solutions from the sector to a model that is showing strain would benefit us all.
The statistics on the housing crisis are well rehearsed, so I won’t repeat them. But it is never far from my mind that behind each of the figures used to describe the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of people affected in different ways by the housing crisis are individuals and families facing preventable tragedies, lost futures and ongoing misery. This is what drives our work, and no one in this new government can afford to lose sight of it.
Mark Washer, chief executive, SNG
