News: July 2010

The housing sector delivered its Housing Pact to the minister, Grant Shapps, at the recent CIH conference, promising creativity, constant improvement and a major contribution to economic recovery in return for government commitment to housing.

The Housing Pact lays out nine ‘asks’ of the government and in return offers innovative ways to deliver more affordable housing with less money, make better use of existing homes and focus scarce resources on providing quality services to those who need them most.

Sarah Webb, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), started by raising concerns with the minister that housing might be “on the wrong list” with number 10 and number 11 along with big government and expensive public services to be abolished.

She stressed however that the housing should be seen as crucial to tackling ‘Broken Britain’ and to helping to address the budget deficit as well as working tirelessly to ensure no one is trapped in poverty by their housing
 
She said: “We’re not interested in defending inefficiency or waste. We’re not stuck in the past – adhering rigidly to one way of thinking or behaving. We don’t want to deny aspiration – in fact we all come to work to help improve life chances and support communities to thrive. But nor will we stop fighting for affordable rented housing as a positive tenure of choice and not as a tenure of last resort for those that can’t buy.”

Included in the nine government commitments asked for in The Housing Pact are that the government continues to invest in the building of new affordable homes with long term and flexible funding packages. In return the housing sector pledges to help make the local incentives model work, to be more innovate in pursing new partnerships and new delivery models.

Also, that the government prioritises retrofitting, offering incentives to encourage investment by households and private industry. In return the sector commits to helping government reduce the 27% of emissions coming from housing.

The full transcript of Sarah Webb’s speech to the Chartered Institute of Housing annual UK conference in Harrogate is available at www.cih.org/harrogate/live