CIH Manchester - Day 01
Meeting carbon targets, tackling the ever-escalating fire safety bill and dealing with the plethora of problems emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic has dominated discussions during the first day of the CIH’s housing conference this year.
The first in-person conference in over two years began yesterday in Manchester with CIH president Gavin Smart reminding the sector of its obligation to both work with government, and at times challenge the government of the day’s thinking when it came to housing policy.
Speaking to delegates he said: “We must have a willing and committed partner in government. Now that's a partner that we must feel that we can collaborate with, but also a partner we feel that we can challenge when they fall short of the decisive action that we think is needed.”
Smart listed a number of measures he felt the government should consider, from abandoning plans to abolish Section 106 agreements in planning to keeping the £20 Universal Credit uplift and announcing more details on how it expects the sector to meet the climate crisis.
With the economy still recovering from the shock of Covid-19 it was also noticeable that many large providers had scaled back their development plans in recent years. L&Q were one such provider whose chief executive Fiona Fletcher-Smith told the CIH conference that fire safety and related measures would cost it around £1.9bn, with a knock-on effect on its development programme.
However one major theme which shone through from day one of the conference is how the Covid-19 pandemic had forced many HA’s (and, dare we say it even government) to re-evaluate their stance when it came to the support their existing tenants were given. In particular the health of housing providers tenants came to the fore
L&Q chief executive Fiona Fletcher-Smith highlighted how the pandemic had hit low-income tenants the hardest when it came to both financial distress and deaths, with overcrowding a key problem. She stated “Finances of social renters have been hit hardest during the pandemic. The luxury of saving money was exactly that, it was a luxury of the middle classes, the middle aged and those working from home [...] Everyone’s incomes are being hit, but it is the lower incomes which are being hit the most.”
Pooja Agrawal, chief executive of social enterprise Public Practice highlighted the quality not just the quantity of homes was arguably more important historically for the country as a whole when it came to tackling the housing crisis.
Agrawal said: “Covid has accentuated the inequality that exists at a much more fundamental level, housing and poor health continues to be a problem, and yet we continue to focus on home ownership [rather than home quality].”
The conference bubble had however been ever so slightly punctured from the drama which was playing out in Westminster, with the government announcing plans to reform social care and provide extra funding for the NHS with an increase on National Insurance. A number of speakers noted how the housing sector may not get an answer from the government for extra funding at a time when it is simultaneously dealing with the impact of the pandemic and tacking the social care funding gap.
Whether the tax hikes and reforms feed into the rhythm of the CIH conference we’ll have to wait and see.