The UK is within the midst of a longstanding however sharply deepening housing disaster. And in no a part of the nation is that disaster extra visceral than in London. With already sky-high rents rising steeply as a part of the cost-of-living squeeze, London’s councils face report numbers of homeless households for whom they need to present properties. That is serving to to push many native authorities to the brink of chapter, as – owing to the power undersupply of social properties – they’re compelled to soak up the exorbitant prices of typically woefully poor-quality non permanent lodging (TA).

Compounding this, macroeconomic headwinds – excessive building prices, excessive rates of interest, restricted grant funding, poor and unaffordable land provide, planning backlogs, and a scarcity of native authority growth capability – imply that constructing the genuinely inexpensive properties Londoners want is more and more difficult. Constructing a brand new era of recent social properties provides the principal long-term resolution to the housing disaster. However these hostile circumstances current an important alternative for councils to take motion now, significantly with stagnating home costs within the capital and with some landlords wishing to promote their rental properties. Councils shopping for properties to let as common wants social housing (for these on council ready lists) or TA helps them to cope with the instant homelessness disaster.

When councils purchase properties from the personal market they’ll make an actual distinction in tackling homelessness of their communities. Properties might be purchased comparatively rapidly, and might extra intently match the kind and measurement of properties that residents want. By bettering the standard and power effectivity of acquired properties, the method also can enhance the environmental effectivity of our housing inventory. Acquisitions obtain this whereas circumventing lots of the challenges related to constructing new inexpensive properties, together with the difficulties councils typically have with land acquisition and developer negotiations. To supply worth for cash and never overheat native property markets, acquisitions should be finished rigorously, significantly in high-demand, high-cost areas. However they do play an important, albeit supplementary, function in growing the provision of recent social properties and are an vital a part of the bundle of options to the housing disaster.

The Larger London Authority (GLA) Proper to Purchase-back (RTBB) scheme, which launched in 2021 and ended final yr, noticed round 1,300 properties purchased by councils. Since then, the GLA has introduced the brand new Council Properties Acquisition Programme (CHAP), which units out its ambition to allow councils to purchase 10,000 properties over the approaching decade. Drawing on the GLA’s allocation beneath the Inexpensive Properties Programme (AHP), these schemes have supplied grant funding to London’s councils to purchase properties and mitigate rising homelessness.

This homelessness disaster can be a monetary disaster for London’s councils and comes at a excessive value to taxpayers. Our analysis reveals that acquisitions can ship very important financial savings for native authorities and central authorities. If London’s councils purchase 10,000 properties over the following 10 years, this can cut back their TA prices by £1.5bn, trim authorities housing profit subsidies by £340m, and generate extra oblique financial savings of £440m over the following 20 years. Annual government-wide financial savings from CHAP will outweigh annual prices after 16 years, that means that from this level it begins to generate annual financial savings. And by yr 25 the programme can have paid for itself, having delivered ample financial savings to cowl its cumulative prices. All these financial savings will produce a dividend to be re-invested extra productively in London’s financial system, whereas taking instant steps to assist deal with London’s homelessness disaster.

Drawing on this evaluation, this report makes a sequence of suggestions. To allow councils throughout the nation, together with London, to learn from social housing acquisitions, the federal government ought to do the next:

1. Decide to a brand new AHP past 2026 on the earliest alternative, which features a longer-term funding settlement for each the GLA and housing suppliers.
2. Introduce a nationwide housing conversion fund, backed by important grant funding, to allow councils throughout the nation to ship extra acquisitions.
3. Loosen up the ten% cap that limits the variety of properties delivered by acquisitions beneath AHP grants administered by Properties England to match the upper 30% cap administered by the GLA, in addition to the acquisitions cap on right-to-buy receipts, in order that councils in London and throughout the nation can maximise some great benefits of acquisitions whereas persevering with to prioritise grant for brand spanking new construct properties.
4. Permit councils to mix right-to-buy receipts with different types of grant funding, similar to CHAP funding, to offer councils the flexibleness they should exchange offered properties.
5. Uprate the TA housing profit subsidy to present native housing allowance (LHA) charges and thereafter to create a sustainable funding settlement for TA for councils going ahead.
6. Present the GLA with extra grant funding to allow environmental enhancements as a part of future acquisitions programmes, in order that the GLA can think about elevating the usual of properties acquired to EPC ​‘C’.
7. Introduce a Neighborhood Proper to Purchase – pre-emptive rights of first refusal for councils – to supply them with a aggressive benefit when buying new properties.
8. Make capital funding out there to a wider vary of community-led housing teams to accumulate properties.

To maximise the advantages of future iterations of CHAP, the GLA ought to:

1. Require all acquisitions to be made in-borough. If a purchase order is made out-of-borough: (a) it should be in a neighbouring borough; and (b) the native authority should display that the acquisition wouldn’t have been financially viable in-borough, or ought to be made out-of-borough for particular, permitted causes.
2. Contemplate asking native authorities to gather and supply knowledge concerning the accessibility of acquired properties.
3. Get hold of the views of councils who haven’t hitherto participated in both of their acquisitions programmes to grasp the explanations for this and encourage their future participation.

Work with Neighborhood Led Housing Hub London and the broader housing co-operative sector to think about how housing co-operative acquisitions might be scaled up, together with inspecting methods to enhance their monetary viability.

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