The Threat to Rural Housing

Our Housing Crisis: a tale of broken trust

Complaints to the Housing Ombudsman are on an inexorable rise , revealing a festering issue at the core of housing organisations. These repeated failures have seeped into the national consciousness, catching the attention of both the media and concerned citizens. Even politicians, typically ensnared in their own agendas, have been forced to take notice. We yearn for housing to be a central theme during this general election - a #planforhousing that couldn’t be ignored. And the public? Well, they’ve noticed too. Over the past few years, a relentless stream of reports has flooded in, painting a grim picture of subpar living conditions. In this financial year alone, the Housing Ombudsman has censured 48 social housing organisations with the allegation of severe maladministration. The Secretary of State has taken notice, penning stern letters to each offender. But this crisis didn’t emerge overnight. Yes, factors like right-to-buy policies, chronic underfunding, aging housing stock, and th...

Rents Hit Record Highs - it's time for controls

It’s time for an informed debate on rent controls. The laissez-faire, competitive market approach in the privately rented sector has demonstrably failed - as average private rents in Britain have climbed to record highs, renters are suffering and excessively high rents create a drain on the economy. Property website Rightmove has said that in May this year, the typical advertised rent outside London reached a record £1,316 a calendar month. In London it was £2,652 a month – almost three times the £894 asked for in north-east England. Rightmove said the average advertised rent outside London in May was an inflation-busting 7% higher than a year earlier. This leads those in the property industry with a vested interest to argue for an increase in supply. But it’s economically illiterate to believe that simply adding more privately rented housing will bring rents down. We need to look seriously at rent controls. Rent control policies vary widely across European countries, with ...

Shared Ownership - a housing market fix?

Shared Ownership has given homes to around 180,000 families and it’s claimed that it offers a third way, an opportunity to house many more at a lower cost, another tenure that broadens the landlord offer. Some housing association websites go further and claim “It’s about getting your foot on the housing ladder. It’s a great alternative to renting and perfect if you can’t afford to buy a house outright.” Really? Whilst housing associations like selling them, the experiences of the occupiers can be quite different. Higher entry costs, administrative charges, rents rising annually, plus the responsibility for all repairs can mean the worst of all worlds. Why do increasing numbers feel trapped in the tenure? “It’s a step on the ladder” , yet Cambridge University found ( 2012 ) that over 12 years only 27,908 had staircased to 100%, and in many rural areas freehold ownership is expressly prohibited. They concluded that many shared owners simply cannot afford to buy their property in fu...

A National Scandal: Empty Homes and the Housing Crisis

Everyone deserves a safe and secure place to call home. Yet in England today, a growing number of people struggle to access this basic need. While hundreds of thousands of properties sit empty, the housing crisis deepens. A Growing Problem, a Missed Opportunity But there's a glimmer of hope. Studies show that repurposing empty properties could create up to 40,000 affordable homes within four years. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would offer a lifeline to countless individuals on the brink of homelessness. This is a wasted opportunity. No one should face homelessness when solutions exist. Families with children are crammed into single rooms, forced to prepare for work in drafty cars, or uprooted from jobs and support networks due to a lack of affordable options. The government's inaction on empty properties is unacceptable. Long-term empty homes, vacant for over six months, have skyrocketed to over 248,000 – a 24% increase in just six years. This coincides with recor...

Time catches up with Eric Pickles

Eric Pickles has been in the news again. He’s a busy man. Almost exactly a decade before his reappearance, I attended ‘Herefordshire 2020: A Vision for the County’, a half day conference in Hereford. It was a brave attempt to demonstrate how the private and public sectors could work together for a positive future. The star of the show was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who gave a bizarre and disturbing performance . The theme of Eric Pickles’ speech was that we need to get away from the central control of policy; we need to deregulate and stop the tick box mentality where there are regulations for everything. Make government officials with clipboards get a sense of perspective. On entering his department, he proudly told us, he gave his civil servants his three priorities; localism, localism and localism. “Localism will support growth and growth will support localism”. His confidence grew. To a Parish Councillor trying to achieve change he chided, “...

It's Not Rocket Science

Don’t believe the hype. Artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent. While advancements are exciting, a popular form of AI called machine learning is not the key to super intelligence that many claim. Machine learning is like a super pattern recognizer, analysing massive amounts of data to make predictions or complete tasks. It's great for specific things, like writing code or finding rhymes, but it doesn't capture how humans think. The human brain works in a completely different league. We can grasp complex ideas with way less information and come up with explanations, not just describe what's happening. Imagine a child learning grammar - they pick up the rules without needing mountains of data. Machine learning programs can't do this, they're stuck on a more basic way of understanding the world. This limited understanding restricts what machine learning programs can achieve. They can describe situations and even predict what might happen next, ...

8 facts you need to know about welfare reform

8 facts you need to know about welfare reform This blog is simple. It gives facts that contradict commonly held and repeated views. It debunks the myths that we hear regularly. Print it out and keep it near you. MYTH 1. Keeping the rise in benefits to only 1% is fair because it hits shirkers, not workers. Fact: 60% of the reduction falls on in-work households. Why? Because the 1% rise - which equates to a real-terms cut - affects universal benefits like child benefit and tax credits like child tax credit. MYTH 2. Spending on benefits for those out of work is out of control. Fact: the majority of all welfare spending is on pensioners - 53%. Also, benefits for those out of work is less than a quarter of the total welfare budget. Second, on average, between 2000 and 2010, welfare spending grew annually, in real terms, by only 1.75% - compared to 5.5% in the 1950s and 1960s, and 3% in the 1980s. Third, benefit spending in 2011-12 accounted for 10.4% of GDP, lower than the mid-80s ...

Leadership and Seductive Innovation

Whatever sector, whatever industry you are in, these are challenging times. It is all hands to the pump to find the right course. And for those fearing their very survival, it is understandable that the search for that new, powerful idea should dominate. But success will never lie in new technology alone; it is also critical to look in the right direction, not to get waylaid into seemingly seductive solutions. Look at the business and be honest, are a series of technological innovations likely? And if they are, will they make the impact on your industry that you anticipate? For service organisations in particular, constant technomania is probably an absolute distraction from the core business. Worse, it will beguile you into believing there is a promised land; that there is a magic bullet that will solve the organisation’s problems. The techno-fetishists earn their crust by promoting ever whackier and unachievable ideas. New jobs are being created, innovation labs are springing up. Cha...

Unlimited Surveillance

3 days after the 2024 General Election was called, the Digital Protection and Digital Information Bill failed to proceed before the Parliamentary session ended. This article is left online as a reference point for the future. As the world continues to grapple with the revelations of unscrupulous tax evasion by global billionaires, the UK Government is gearing up to pursue the most vulnerable in society to recover overpaid benefits. In late 2023, the EU Tax Observatory estimated that a modest 2% levy on the world’s 2,756 wealthiest billionaires could generate a staggering £250bn annually . These billionaires collectively hold an estimated wealth of $13tn. The report poignantly highlighted the lack of serious efforts to address this issue, warning that the current situation could potentially undermine the public’s faith in existing tax systems. However, rather than tackling this glaring inequality, the UK government is instead focusing its efforts on the less privileged. It is see...

Green Ambitions, Stalling Reality: Can the Market Deliver Clean Energy?

Soaring renewable energy installations masked a harsh truth in 2023: the clean energy transition is faltering. Fossil fuel use continues to climb, with China shouldering most of the renewables burden. China's secret? State-owned companies prioritise national goals over profit, driving massive clean energy projects. The West, reliant on profit-driven private enterprise, struggles. Renewable energy offers modest returns, a stark contrast to traditional energy sources. Intense competition further squeezes profits. Subsidies keep the West's renewables afloat, but don't guarantee strong profits. As the Earth heats inexorably, Governments face a stark choice: accept the failure of the free market for clean energy, or embrace climate catastrophe

Housing: creative solutions

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