Posted 10.09.14
A massive operation is under way to collect over 60,000 items of furniture used by Commonwealth Games athletes and distribute it to vulnerable families.
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), part of Wheatley Group, has begun moving the furniture -including sofas, beds and wardrobes - from the Glasgow 2014 Athletes' Village in Dalmarnock to storage facilities.
The furniture was donated to GHA by the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee and RGS Ltd, the Official Furniture Provider for the Games.
It is estimated it will take over 2,500 return trips to complete the task but once all the furniture has been collected and catalogued, Wheatley Group will begin distributing it directly to tenants in and around Glasgow who may be struggling to furnish their homes. That will include not just GHA tenants but also Cube and Loretto customers which are both part of the Wheatley Group.
Items which have been moved out of the Village into storage are now also available for city-based registered social landlords and community groups, with some already collecting items to support families in need in their communities.
A showhome has been set up, where tenants, landlords and community groups can view the furniture.
Two housing associations are to test the use of drones for identifying maintenance needs. Both Halton Housing Trust and Bromford Housing have invested in the technology,which uses cameras mounted on the drones.
One of the main advantages is the reduction in scaffolding costs, particularly for roof inspections. Even routine maintenance inspections can require expensive scaffolding, which can be a significant cost in tight budgets.
The trial will look at the quality of photographs from the high-definition camera on the drones, which is thought to be good enough to allow investigating typical problems such as roof leaks.
In addition to savings, avoiding scaffolding also avoids inconvenience for residents.
Bromford has purchased a £380 drone for test purposes and in addition to roof inspections, it will also use the technology to carry out inspections of land before development. The 28,000-home landlord may invest in more expensive drones that have GPS technology
Posted 02.09.14
Private registered providers of social housing own 2,666,053 homes, a 0.6% increase on the total for 2013, according to the Statistical Data Return (SDR) which has just been published by the Homes & Communities Agency HCA for the third consecutive year.
The data come from an annual survey of all private registered providers (PRPs) in England and includes data on size and type of home, location and rents at 31 March 2014. Additional data for large providers with 1,000 homes or more include Right to Buy sales and acquisitions during the year.
Key trends include:
Private registered providers of social housing (PRPs) reported 2,666,053 units/bedspaces owned at 31 March 2014, an increase of 0.6% on the total for 2013.
General needs units/bedspaces exceeded two million units for the first time (increasing by 0.7% since 2013 to a total of 2,002,180 units).
Affordable Rent stock has increased by 102% (from 39,594 units/bedspaces in 2013 to 79,815 in 2014), this growth being attributable to this being the main type of new social housing supply.
Stock sold to tenants under the Right to Buy (RTB), Preserved Right to Buy (PRTB) and Right to Acquire (RTA) schemes has increased by 78% (to a total of 4,835 units) since 2012/13.
The increases in tenant discounts offered to those qualifying for RTB or PRTB, part of the Government's reinvigoration of these schemes, along with the associated advertising and publicity are likely drivers behind these rises.
The total vacancies rate for self-contained general needs stock was 1.4% at 31 March 2014, the same proportion as for 2013.
Within this total, there was a reduction in the number of vacancies in properties not currently available for letting, but vacancies in general needs properties available for letting increased by 21.1% between 2013 and 2014.
The average net rent for general needs stock owned by PRPs with more than 1,000 units/bedspaces was £92.30.
This represented an increase of 4.4% since 2013, reflecting both inflation-linked increases in target rents and convergence towards these target rents permissible as part of the current rent standard.
