The Voice of Authority - Should there be legislation for housing for key workers post-pandemic?

The Voice of Authority:

Should there be legislation for housing for key workers post-pandemic?

In partnership with:

28 May 2020 Post webinar report

Post Webinar Report Should there be legislation for housing for key workers post-pandemic?

28 May 2020

In partnership with: Chair: Toby Fox Managing director, 3Fox Panelists Nick Towe

Barbara Brownlee

Commercial director Edaroth

Executive director of growth, planning and housing, Westminster City Council

Cllr Emily Davey Portfolio holder for housing, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames

OVERVIEW The discussion ranged widely and this report contains a sample and summary. Watch the webinar in full at thevoiceofauthority.co.uk, and subscribe to stay updated on future episodes.

Post Webinar Report DISCUSSION SUMMARY Chair Toby Fox opened the session by pointing to a recently released report, which showed that interest in key worker jobs was up by 67%.

One of the issues that Covid-19 has really called attention to is the availability and affordability of key worker housing. Many key workers in London cannot afford to live near their places of work, and as such are forced to commute long distances. Cllr Emily Davey spoke passionately for Kingston upon Thames, an affluent west London borough with high house prices and high rental costs. She said: “You have people coming a long way to work very long hours. It’s not good for the environment, and it’s not good for them.”

How are we going to get the local economy going? That’s going to be through building.

We’ve got to be the ones getting out there getting building…Yes there will be a financial impact of Covid, and how we’re going to tackle it is building on our own land.

Cllr Emily Davey

Cllr Davey’s background is as a housing solicitor, and she talked about schemes such as Social HomeBuy - designed to help tenants buy the property which they rent – being inaccessible to police, teachers and nurses due to their cost. She also spoke about some of the problems that shared

ownership and assured tenancy pose. “If we’re interested in actually helping key workers, whoever they are, we’ve got to come up with a product that puts them at the heart, and it actually looks at what they want, rather than what the developer, the council, the private owner wants.”

Barbara Brownlee was in agreement with Cllr Davey that the UK is “littered with ex-affordable type products that have been dreamt up in Whitehall”. Housing key workers locally is a particularly acute challenge for Brownlee, with there really being no more expensive borough to live in London than Westminster. With there being a high level of needs to qualify for social

Post Webinar Report housing in the UK, Brownlee called for a revival of efforts to supply affordable housing, and a reappraisal of what that term actually means.

Not as defined by planning policy, not as defined by the GLA, not as it has been defined by housing minsters, but “genuinely, to the person who wants to

Aim high. We want to build very beautiful, very sustainable houses that are a joy to live in.

Barbara Brownlee

rent it, affordable”. As to what that actually looks like, she added: “If you think of housing that you can afford to rent on a third to a half of your wages, that is something approaching genuinely affordable.” In Westminster 25% of housing investments go into social housing, but outside of this only 4% of the housing in the borough qualifies as affordable. Brownlee is then currently attempting to balance out these percentages. The council is spending £2 billion by 2023, building homes that are “genuinely affordable” and where rents and sale prices are set according to wages and other set criteria.

Citing a recently published report from Shelter, Nick Towe showed that the bulk of housing needed in the UK is social and affordable, and that the UK will require some three million new social homes to be built over the next 20 years. How can this be addressed? Towe said: “There’s more to it than changing policy, and changing the law, I think we need to change attitudes.”

The recently initiated Homes for Heroes campaign has really turned a spotlight onto key worker housing. As to the question of who those key workers actually are, Towe argued for a wide definition. “Society can’t operate without someone stocking the shelves at Tesco or delivering the goods from Amazon, as well as the obvious ones, like the blue light workers.” He also called for a change in delivery methods – both in how houses are built and the land which can be unlocked for them to be built on. Edaroth promote modern methods of construction over traditional as a way of speeding up the housebuilding process, particularly so when social distancing has to be adhered to. MMC is also cheaper than traditional, both in the short-term

Post Webinar Report when considering construction and long-term when thinking about management. Towe also called for increased use of brownfield sites. “There is enough underused brownfield land in London that if we developed 80% of it, it would solve the housing crisis in London.”

Similar statistics apply to other areas of the country. Land-owning organisations such as the NHS and TfL could also look at actually developing what they own using it to house their workers, rather than selling it for capital receipt. Cllr Davey seized upon the idea of the public sector taking more responsibility for the building of houses, rather than depending on private developers. “For too long, we have been relying on private developers to provide social housing or affordable housing, and it’s not in their interest to continuously supply, as otherwise the price will drop.” As part of this, she called for more national data on land registry.

While this is forthcoming from local authorities, it is less so when it comes to the regulated authorities. “Local authorities can and should exercise their ability to build,” Brownlee added. “They are AAA, they

We are not a developer who builds masses of houses and flogs them to anyone who will take them.

We are looking to partner with local authorities and make our development expertise available.

Nick Towe

can borrow so cheaply at the moment. They can invest long-term, they can sell, they can do any level of rent they want at any level which is suitable for their area, which clearly is a viable proposition… They can deliver good quality affordable housing and be excellent long-term landlords.” Towe agreed that “it needs to be the council building the houses, or the NHS. It gives them the opportunity to make them genuinely affordable”.

What changes then can be introduced into legislation that can help deliver these homes and unlock brownfield sites for key worker housing? For Brownlee, it is not a question of any deficiencies in the planning process, and nor does permitted development offer a solution.

Cllr Davey likewise didn’t propose any changes to legislation instead suggesting new leasing structures and models that might make social housing more attractive to build, as well as

Post Webinar Report appealing to tenants. There was some talk of CPOs, but ultimately sentiment on the panel was against this idea – “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, in the words of Towe.

Brownlee reminded the audience that going back in history, public sector employers supplied housing to their workers – all of which has since been sold off. Brownlee encouraged regulated authorities to look at using land they already own to house workers, rather than using it for capital gain. “It’s much more sustainable to ask the NHS to have a long-term view about strategically the number of employees they want to have in a place like central London, than just argue about the price of land.” Towe agreed that this drive to get capital receipt from stateowned land is definitely a problem. “You can easily create partnerships with developers and these government bodies where the developers come in and develops the land but the land isn’t sold… They can own it, and they can look at the long-term income stream. These long-term income streams are extremely attractive to City investors.”

Councils are beginning to deliver on social and affordable housing – Kingston’s first council housing in 40 years is due next year, with the first 100 coming out of the ground in January.

Westminster has a commitment to building 2,000 homes by 2023. One would hope that they will be able to build upon these numbers, and that other local authorities will be able to make

Post Webinar Report POLLS AND INSIGHT A number of polls were carried out over the course of the webinar surveying the audience of industry professionals.

Will Covid-19 impact on the financial ability of local authorities to deliver social housing?

Unsure 17% No 2%

Should key workers be prioritised for housing post-pandemic?

No 7% Yes 75%

Unsure 7%

Yes 86%

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