In August 2001 we were reporting:
Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, launched the £50 million Street Warden Scheme. Under the scheme, street wardens will help improve people's quality of life through some 100 new initiatives around the country. 25,000 households will benefit from the scheme...
Ashley Horsey, Chief Executive of the Empty Homes Agency, was appointed to head up the Government's new Bed and Breakfast (B&B) Unit. The new Unit, which was announced by the Housing Minister in May 2001, will be dedicated to reducing the numbers of homeless families being housed in B&B accommodation. It will be located in the Government Office for London, as the problem of B&B is greatest in the Capital...
Glasgow's infamous hostel for homeless men - the Great Eastern Hotel - closed its doors to residents for the last time. The notorious landmark has for decades been a hostel of last resort for many of the City's homeless men. All of the 120 residents have now found permanent homes...
Touchstone HA introduced an interesting way of encouraging tenants to read rent information. After reading the document, which compares rent levels with other associations, origami instructions can be followed on how the page can be folded to make a swan...
Scottish Homes and the Chief Scientist Office launched a new project that will see more than 1,000 households take part in a major study into the link between health and housing - the first of its kind in Scotland. The study sites will be spread across the country... One key objective is to assess whether new housing improves the mental and physical health of residents...
In August 2005 we were reporting:
The Government announced the launch of the £2 million Working Future scheme, to help more families out of temporary accommodation. The Working Future pilot, a joint project between the ODPM, DWP, the GLA, East Thames HA and three London boroughs, will enable local authorities to subsidise the rent of families in temporary accommodation...
The Government announced that it is consulting on raising the management and physical standards of purpose-built university accommodation for students, inline with those already set down for privately rented housing, particularly through Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) licensing...
Speaking at the NHF Communities Conference, Minister David Miliband admitted that the Government was likely to miss the 2010 decent homes target by as much as 10%. In his speech, Mr Miliband made reference to 90% of the target being the current trajectory for 2010...
The Government announced new measures to make buildings more energy efficient and produce savings of one million tonnes of carbon per year by 2010. The changes to Parts F and L (ventilation and fuel conservation) of the Building Regulations two years ahead of schedule from April 2006 and the implementation of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive will make a major contribution to the UK's commitment to combat climate change. This will mean new homes will need to be better insulated and make use of more efficient heating systems...
Twenty-six Neighbourhood Wardens become the first to gain a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) specifically for wardens, which recognises the skills needed for the job. Wardens who have gained the qualification carry out their duties in Birmingham, Coventry, London, Manchester, Swindon, Worcester and Wales...
Different views came to the boil at a summit called to discuss reducing the number of soup runs in the centre of London. Speaking at the Soup Summit, Angela Harvey, Westminster Council cabinet member for Housing argued there was now one soup run for every two rough sleepers and said 'soup runs are creating perverse incentives for people to maintain a street-based lifestyle'.
Volunteers working with soup runs responded angrily. One of those voices was Chris Peacock, a soup run organiser with All Souls Local Action Network, who argued that the problem was not an over provision of soup runs but a lack of provision of accommodation...
Despite an appeal from Local Government and Communities Minister David Miliband not to support the motion, delegates at the Labour Party conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of a fourth option for investment in council housing...
A survey conducted by Access Matrix found that 60% of housing associations had not complied with the legal requirement to carry out a risk assessment to assess the risk of staff suffering physically or mentally as a result of their work.
The survey also found that only 50% of those surveyed had knowledge of the Health and Safety Executive's stress management standards, which sets the level of support that should be offered to employees...
Home Group came to an arrangement with the Swedish furniture company IKEA to build six pre-fabricated homes on a site in Drumchape, Glasgow. IKEA will construct the Boklok units from its Milton Keynes base, with work starting early in 2006...
A new report, funded by the Housing Corporation, concludes that the transfer of local authority homes to Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) housing associations has not been a priority and more should be done to ensure the growth of specialist BME housing providers. The report makes a raft of recommendations to help increase the number of homes owned or managed by BME associations via stock transfer...
In his speech at the National Housing Federation Conference, Communities Minister David Miliband delivered a clear message that the Government would reduce top-down regulation but landlords must be more accountable from the bottom up.
Mr Miliband acknowledged the claims of landlords that they were being over-regulated and argued that his aim was to achieve good performance and not manage by excessive form-filling. However, he also argued that there is a need to find different ways of giving tenants the kind of power that owners take for granted...