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A Redhill based housing association have transformed one of their properties into a sustainability training hub as part of its decarbonisation and retrofit programme.

It’s safe to say a number of housing organisations have made plans to turn the sector green, with an overarching goal of meeting net zero achievements. However, there is one company whose efforts can be described as nothing short of expectational. Raven Housing Trust, which was founded in 2002, have revealed they have now created a sustainability training hub from one of their derelict properties.

The new project is part of the organisations decarbonisation and retrofit programme, which involves upgrading 700 of Raven’s homes in the Redhill area with energy saving technologies using funds from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and its own investment. The new hub is equipped with solar panels, battery storage, modern ventilation systems, low-energy lighting, double glazed windows and wall insulation.

Now that the hub has been opened, Raven are inviting members of the public to visit so they can learn all about the technologies that will provide green home upgrades and decide which would work best for them. Arguably, this project couldn’t have come at a better time as recent government data shows in 2022 the residential sector emitted 56.4 MtCO2, accounting for 17% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.

‘Some of our customers may be unfamiliar with solar panels and battery storage, both of which are relatively new technologies as well as managing humidity through wall insulation, extractor fans and double glazing to prevent damp and mould,’ Anthony Day, sustainability manager at Raven Housing Trust, said.

‘Our new training hub aims to empower and educate our customers by demonstrating these technologies, how they will be fitted into their homes and how they can help people manage their energy use and heating effectively. It marks a significant milestone in Raven’s commitment to creating energy-efficient, future-ready homes.’

Image: Raven Housing Trust

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With just three days left until the General Election a family run construction firm is calling on the next government to prioritise affordable homes in rural areas.

Sam and Matt Winsley are more than qualified to talk about the future of affordable housing in rural UK locations. Since 2018 the pair have been running Winsley White – a building contractors and development organisation – where they have experienced firsthand the benefits affordable homes can inject to such communities and what better time to discuss their importance than during Rural Housing Week.

To mark the event, Winsely White have joined forces with Stonewater, a leading social housing provider to call for a long-term commitment to rural housing and a planning system that facilitates the delivery of new homes.

‘The positive effects of affordable rural housing are vast, but most important are the impact on customers’ lives. Living in the village where a customer grew up or works is a real benefit, and having personally grown up in a rural village, it would have been the only way I would have been able to stay there,’ Sam Winsley said.

‘But the delivery of affordable homes has definitely become more challenging. The main barriers to rural house building at the moment would be the planning process, as well as local objection to affordable homes. However, with buy-in from all political parties and a strong commitment from housing providers like Stonewater to build rurally, the hurdles can be overcome.’

An example of how more homes can benefit rural communities includes a development based in the village of Holt, Wiltshire. Delivered in partnership with Stonewater, ten new properties are set to be completed to Passivhaus standard, meaning they will be highly energy efficient – another issues that is currently plaguing the housing sector.

Solar panels are also due to be fitted alongside Wondrwall heating and water systems, which use smart technology to monitor and understand customer energy use to help reduce bills. These properties will add to the almost 8,000 Stonewater homes in villages and rural areas across England – 20% of its total number of homes. Among them are 50 for affordable rent, shared ownership and rent-to-buy which are spread across Loxwood, Chichester and Somerset.

Jonathan Layzell, Stonewater’s chief growth and development officer, said: ‘Stories like this keep us motivated to build as many rural homes as we can. We see the benefits and need to ensure we articulate the positive impact that both building and managing homes well in a rural community can have.

‘As Sam has experienced, the homes we build are enormously positive for the people living there, but more widely for the communities, villages and local economies too.

‘To maximise opportunities to build homes and ease the housing crisis, we need long-term commitment to rural housing, along with dedicated funding. We also need to ensure the planning system facilitates the delivery of new homes rather than acting as a blocker.’

In response to this, Sam added: ‘There’s often a perception that rural homes won’t be built to a high specification, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Homes are being built to a really high quality, with environmentally focussed features that people want and expect.’

Rural Housing Week is an annual initiative run by the National Housing Federation (NHF) and was established to highlight the various social and economic benefits more rural housing can bring – the latest NHF research shows building just ten affordable homes in a rural area generates £1.4m for the economy and supports an average of 26 jobs.

Image: Stonewater 

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Adelle Okei, surveyor at Carter Jonas in Birmingham, explains development sites are more in demand as a result of higher bids. He discusses how council could help diminish the problem. 

Building and development plans

Recently, Carter Jonas has marketed development sites which have attracted multiple bids, higher offers than had been anticipated and very little variance between conditional and unconditional offers. 

This is indicative of dire undersupply in the land market. Throughout the country, developers have diminishing landbanks and are increasingly prepared to compromise on site size, conditions and locations, or accept overage clauses which would have made a purchase an undesirable just a year ago.

From what I have seen and heard, I believe much of the land with the best potential is locked into local authority ownership and has become inaccessible due to a plethora of issues, mostly relating to funding and resourcing.

Local authority financial and housing challenges

In November last year the County Councils Network and Society of County Treasurers conducted a survey of 41 of county and unitary authorities which found that 10% are not confident that they can balance their budget in 2023. The figure increased to 40% in 2024 and 60% in 2025, due to combination of stubbornly high inflation, rising demand and ‘broken’ provider markets for children in care. Furthermore, research by the Local Democracy Research Centre found that only 14% of senior staff in English councils are confident about the sustainability of their council finances. Across the sector, local authorities are increasing council tax while cutting services to the bare minimum and dipping into reserves year on year. Despite this, there has been an unprecedented rise in councils issuing Section 114 notices.

And last June the Chartered Institute of Housing warned that 44% of local authorities were reducing housing programmes, while a quarter had already halted development – with a devastating impact on the supply of social and affordable housing.

Council house building has reduced sharply in recent decades. Over than 100,000 homes were built annually during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but this has dwindled to just a few thousand in recent years.

A recent investigation by The Independent found that the majority of local authorities have failed to build a single council home in the past five years, and that although there are more than 1.2 million families on the housing waiting list, in 2021/22 only a third of England’s local authorities built a new home.

There is a sad irony that Birmingham City Council completed the most new homes (185 properties, 97 of which were for social rent) – but is also the most high profile council to have issued a Section 114 notice, with a projected gap of £87m between income and expenditure for the 2024/25 financial year.

Central government’s role and challenges

Councils struggle to build homes – specifically social and affordable housing – primarily because of a lack of funding from central government – and yet in 2023 the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) handed £1.9bn of housing funding back to the Treasury after reportedly struggling to find projects to spend it on.

So we have an impasse on several levels: councils short of funding, but Government unable to find a means of spending its housing budget; those local authorities which do provide housing suffering financial consequences; and, as a result, much-needed land locked into the ownership of councils unable to deliver.

Public/Private partnerships as a solution

Fortunately there is a solution – one that Carter Jonas has implemented successfully across the country, and which I delivered on behalf of local authority clients in a previous role. Public / private partnerships enable the ideal combination of publicly owned land and local authorities’ unique understanding of a location and its demographic make-up, together with private sector expertise, financing and ability to take on risk.

The involvement of the private sector also addresses the situation whereby local decision-making is invariably compromised by politicians who are, understandably, motivated by achieving electoral support within a specific political cycle. As a result, housing development in local authorities tends to forward as short-term successes, rather than the longer-term approach that strategic investment requires.

Differences in approach

Clearly there are differences in approach between the public and private sectors. One such example is legacy: local authorities quite rightly view their landholdings as investments and require a good return both during and following the development process, whether through residential or commercial properties let to private tenants, or creating value through community facilities and open spaces. With a history of working for both large-scale private landowners and public sector, Carter Jonas has had a role in the evolution of legacy-inspired development, and implemented solutions which deliver a scheme from which the original owner can benefit long term through patient capital, while also being justly proud of the development that has been created.

There are some very good examples of public / private partnerships in West Midlands, specifically in Coventry, Nuneaton and Warwick. But the potential is considerable, particularly for brownfield sites in city centres. Should the Labour party win the general election and realise its ambition of allowing local authorities to buy up land for housing through compulsory purchase, the potential – along with the need for local authorities to call on private sector expertise – will increase exponentially. But we cannot allow politics to dictate the timing of much needed housing development: in the meantime there is considerable potential for innovative partnerships to turnaround disused land and deliver much needed homes.

Images: Antenna and Josh Olalde

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Research from Nationwide Building Society shows the average UK house price rose by 0.2% in June which is a significant drop from May’s figures.

The data, which was released this morning, outlined that the modest monthly growth leaves the average house price in the UK at a whopping £266,064 – an increase of 1.5% from this time last year.

News of the slow house price increase has come just two weeks after the Bank of England announced they would be keeping interest rates at 5.25% – a decision that has held back buyer activity. The figures recorded in June rose at a slower rate in May – when house prices increased by 0.4% month on month.

‘While earnings growth has been much stronger than house price growth in recent years, this hasn’t been enough to offset the impact of higher mortgage rates, which are still well above the record lows prevailing in 2021 in the wake of the pandemic,’ Robert Gardener, Nationwide’s chief economist, said.

‘For example, the interest rate on a five-year fixed-rate mortgage for a borrower with a 25% deposit was 1.3% in late 2021, but in recent months this has been nearer to 4.7%.’

‘As a result, housing affordability is still stretched,’ Gardener continued. ‘Today, a borrower earning the average UK income buying a typical first-time buyer property with a 20% deposit would have a monthly mortgage payment equivalent to 37% of take-home pay – well above the long-run average of 30%.’

In addition to showcasing a slow rise in prices, Nationwide’s figures also highlight the number of transactions for properties is down by 15% compared with 2019, when prices were at a record high.

Looking at the research more closely, the North of England and the Midlands were found to have the quickest house price increases whereas in the South prices fell by 0.3%. London was the best-performing southern region, with annual price growth maintained at 1.6%. East Anglia was the weakest-performing region, with prices down 1.8% year on year.

The news of slow growth has come as a shock as at the beginning of this year economists had theorised that the Bank would cut rates as soon as May or June.

However, Daniel Austin, CEO and co-founder at ASK Partners, has claimed that although it seems to be slow, the property sector is improving.

Austin said: ‘The property sector is recovering. Rent values have seen sustained growth, positioning real estate as reasonably valued in comparison to gilts and presenting growth potential.

‘In the realm of commercial real estate, factors like physical condition, location, and age significantly influence a property’s value. Well-maintained properties boasting modern amenities tend to command higher prices, while neglected ones may struggle to attract tenants or investors. In the current market, the emphasis has shifted towards the importance of location and quality over the yield on debt or cost. We anticipate opportunistic acquisitions of prime properties in prime locations.’

‘A RICS survey uncovered that non-traditional market segments, such as aged care facilities, student housing, data centres and life sciences real estate are yielding the most robust returns. With housing set to be a battleground point in this week’s election, we hope to see a long-term plan for new homes, including social housing, however, we expect we will see more short-term fixes,’ Austin added. ‘Stimulus will be welcome but can create unnecessary froth. A stamp duty holiday or reprieve may be a welcome sign.’

‘For developers, eased planning regulations for brownfield sites and conversions will be popular. However, the new government will be faced with a challenge – striking a balance between trying to increase housing supply and therefore affordability by supporting developers and private landlords who do not want to see greenfield development. The planning system remains hotly political and as a result, landlords and developers are unlikely to see much in their favour.’

Below you will find a breakdown of the average costs of homes according to Nationwide’s research throughout the UK:

• Northern Ireland: £190,000
• North West: £213,580
• Yorkshire and the Humber: £206,653
• North: £213,580
• London: £525,248
• West Midlands: £242,873
• Scotland: £181,186
• Wales: £207,650
• East Midlands: £231,745
• Outer Metropolitan: £418,919
• South West: £301,139
• East Anglia: £270,597
• Outer South East: £331,995

Images: Pexels and Kai Pilger

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