Grenfell five years on - Could it happen again? by The Housing Podcast

Over the past year the issue of disrepair in social housing properties has risen in prominence to become one of the country’s key social issues. This has been brought to light by the long-term ITV News investigation which has featured cases where residents have been living in appalling conditions. These case studies have painted a picture where tenants have been ignored by their landlords for months and sometimes years. This has been matched by a huge uptake in disrepair claims facing...

When the Conservative Party was elected in late 2019, its manifesto included a pledge to end rough sleeping in England by 2024. No one could have predicted that the government would come close to fulfilling this promise just a few months later when it attempted to house all rough sleepers at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Everyone In initiative, as it came to be known, raised hopes that ending rough sleeping in England was within grasp. But now, almost two years after the UK...

With national lockdowns hopefully a thing of the past and the sector hopefully edging back slowly to business as usual, the next 12 months will be crucial for providers to make up for lost time. However, the challenges are vast. With the building safety crisis, net zero challenges, decisions over rent rises and a social housing bill on the way, it will be an interesting 12 months for the sector. So, with that to look forward to we have brought together the whole Inside Housing newsteam to...

This week chancellor Rishi Sunak stood in parliament to deliver his Spending Review and Budget. Speaking on Wednesday he looked to set out a post-pandemic plan for the country, but where does housing fit into this? Today on The Housing Podcast we analyse what the chancellor said and assess the impact it may have for the sector.

The party conference season is over and Labour and the Conservatives have set out their political intentions for the coming 12 months. Today on The Housing Podcast Inside Housing's news team assesses the political housing landscape and discusses where both parties stand on housing issues and what we can expect from them in the future.

In June 2019, parliament passed legislation committing the UK to becoming a net zero-carbon emitter by the year 2050. That presents a huge challenge to the housing sector, including social landlords, who now have less than 30 years to ensure their homes meet the necessary energy efficiency standards. And while the coronavirus pandemic has dominated minds for the past year, there is an increasing focus on how that challenge can be met. Inside Housing's Nat Barker and Lucie Heath are joined by...

More people than ever are claiming benefits to help them survive the pandemic. But they are not receiving enough money to cover their housing costs. Why? The Housing Podcast is joined by Marc Francis of charity Z2K and Sam Lister from the Chartered Institute of Housing to discuss where the holes in the safety net are. Read more about this issue here: https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/the-holes-that-must-be-fixed-in-our-benefits-safety-net-69171

In the final episode of 2020, The Housing Podcast looks back over the strangest of years. As well as delving into the major housing stories of the last 12 months, the team are quizzed on their knowledge of recent policy announcements and attempt to predict what lies in store for the sector in 2021.

Last week, the government published its long-awaited Social Housing White Paper. This 76-page document was born from the ashes of the Grenfell Tower fire; as it emerged that residents had tried unsuccessfully to raise safety concerns before the disaster, it became clear to ministers that the system to ensure landlords hear their tenants had failed with the worst possible consequences. Nearly three and a half years on from the fire, and more than two years on from its green paper precursor,...

In June 2017, a terrible fire tore through the cladding on Grenfell Tower, claiming 72 lives. After the blaze, it emerged that other blocks of flats were covered in similar materials. Three years on the scale of the crisis has grown to involve numerous types of external wall systems, affecting thousands of buildings across the country. Progress in fixing them is proving painstakingly slow as arguments continue over who should be made to pay and government funding comes up short. For the...

Last week, the government laid out proposals for what Boris Johnson previously described as "the most radical reforms to our planning system since the Second World War". Ministers have a vision to overhaul the approach to setting housing targets, deciding where to build and securing funding for public benefits from developers, while short-term changes to the existing regime could have a huge impact on affordable housing. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, the team explains what the...

The coronavirus is profoundly impacting nearly every aspect of life in the UK. In a slightly unusual episode of The Housing Podcast, the team discusses how the pandemic is affecting housing – including renters, building safety, homelessness, housebuilding and care homes.

As the Housing Podcast adjusts to the new environment of social distancing, here is another special audio-long read episode. An investigation has shown the extent of waking watches in use around the UK. Here Peter Apps asks why, and what the coronavirus outbreak means for this crucial safety measure. We aim to be back with a normal episode in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered the first Budget since the new government was elected in December. Contrary to the fears of some, the Budget at first glance seemed to offer a lot for housing. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, the team dives further into the various housing announcements and asks what they really mean for the sector.

A new documentary launching in the UK today (28 February), entitled Push, follows UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing Leilani Farha around the world as she attempts to make sense of the global housing crisis. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, we discuss the causes and effects of the crisis with Ms Fahra. Then, we hear the views of Nicholas Burton, a survivor of the Grenfell Tower fire, and Jerry Flynn, a former resident of south London’s Heygate Estate, who both...

The Housing Ombudsman Service recently appointed a new boss and is waiting for ministers to sign off plans for a radical shake-up of how it operates. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, we speak to new housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway - who has previously worked alongside Boris Johnson and David Cameron - about how he plans to change social housing complaints culture for the better.

As the year draws to an end, The Housing Podcast team wraps up the last 12 months, battles it out in a housing quiz, and looks ahead to 2020.

A recent report highlighted failures in a particular subsector of housing that often escapes regulation. Termed 'non-commissioned exempt accommodation', its function is to place a roof over the head of people with nowhere else to go. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, Inside Housing speaks to Sarah Rowe, senior policy officer at Crisis, and Ashley Horsey, chief executive at Commonweal Housing, about why this type of accommodation can cause problems.

With three weeks to go before voters take to the polls, the parties outlined set out their stalls on housing. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, we analyse the key pledges.

This week, Sir Martin Moore-Bick published his Phase One report from the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017. The 838-page report focuses on the events of that dreadful night: how the blaze started, how it spread so ferociously through the building, and how organisations including the emergency services responded. Sir Martin has also produced recommendations aimed at preventing similar disasters from happening again. Our team has spent the last few days picking through...

Around four million people in England live in homes owned by housing associations. One of the most talked-about in recent years has been Gentoo - a Sunderland landlord with more than 30,000 homes which saw a dramatic rise and fall after being formed around the millennium. In this episode of The Housing Podcast, we talk to its new bosses about what went wrong and how they are putting things right.

In our second emergency podcast, the team reacts to the news that the government plans to give housing association tenants the right to buy a 10% share in their homes. Music by Broke for Free.

This week's episode of The Housing Podcast comes from the National Housing Summit, where we spoke to three people who argue that anyone concerned about women's issues should be thinking about the housing crisis.