By the Greater Manchester Law Centre (@gmlawcentre)

 

• 280,000 are homeless in England
• 750,000 are behind on their rent
• 2000 possession orders were made in the run up to Christmas
• 500 households were evicted by bailiffs despite eviction ban

 

On 31 March 2021, the current eviction ‘ban’ ends and the extended warning of eviction for tenants of longer notice periods falls away. In place of these safety nets, the government have passed ‘The Debt Respite Scheme’.

 

There’s a reason why the government have been quiet about this: it’s not a good solution.

 

The regulations create a moratorium of 60 days – during which time your debts and enforcement action are on hold. The idea is to give you ‘breathing space’ to find a ‘debt solution’. To apply you have to go to the council or find a debt advisor who will agree that you and your debt meet the criteria. Debtors aren’t qualified if they are bankrupt, have an IVA in place or had a moratorium within last 12 months, and the debt advisor must think that the debtor hasn’t got funds to meet the debt and that the moratorium is required.

 

Rent or mortgage arrears meet the criteria, but you have to be able to continue to pay your rent or mortgage payments as they fall due – there’s no respite from that. If you don’t keep up payments or your landlord/creditor will be ‘unduly prejudiced’ by the delay, then the moratorium can be revoked.

 

If at the end of the 60 days no magical ‘debt solution’ has appeared, then it’s back to business as usual for your landlord, creditor, the courts and bailiffs and no further moratorium can be applied for within the next 12 months. During this time, you can be taken to court and evicted just like before.

 

David Smith, partner in the commercial litigation team at JMW Solicitors, has reassured landlords that the Respite Scheme “is not a free ride for defaulting tenants. A section 21 notice can still be served and enforced against a tenant subject to a moratorium and so can a section 8 notice citing grounds other than arrears of rent.” In other words, what protection does it offer tenants really?

 

It’s possible that before these regulations come into force, loans for tenants (as requested by the landlord lobby) will be brought in to provide the ‘debt solution’ that is so far conspicuously absent from these Regulations. However, loans just push people further into debt. They take the burden off landlords by adding another creditor into tenants’ lives.

 

Debt isn’t a solution to debt.

 

What is the solution?

 

In March 2020, the Secretary of State for Housing, Robert Jenrick, said that “no one should lose their home because of the #coronavirus pandemic”.

 

But over 70,000 have already lost their homes.

 

Six million people are about to lose thousands in benefits if the uplift to Universal Credit is not extended and the number of people affected by the benefit cap is rocketing from £79,000 in Feb 2020 to 246,000 by the end of March 2021.

 

If the government wanted to, they could keep their promise. GMLC, Greater Manchester Tenants Union and Garden Court North Chambers have prepared draft legislation that would aim to prevent evictions by abolishing section 21 and removing arrears arising during the pandemic from the definition of arrears for possession proceedings (turning rent arrears into a more standard form of debt rather than a debt which can be used to justify an eviction).

 

As things stand, this ‘breathing space’ is nothing but thin air. Thousands of people have lost their homes because of Covid-19 and they are about to be joined by thousands more.

 

And whilst the government say we can’t afford the additional funds to prevent homelessness (e.g. by maintaining the uplift, scrapping the benefit cap, increasing local housing allowance, granting recourse to public funds), can we afford the £20k per year it costs to keep a homeless person on the streets?

 

By Allison Fewtrell

 

Despite the extension on the Eviction Ban to 31st March, tenants can still receive eviction notices.

 

Nearly half a million tenants are in arrears across the UK but according to research by the NRLA landlord lobbying group that figure is closer to 1 million.

 

In Greater Manchester, an estimated 16,800 households are in arrears and more than 4000 households are in temporary accommodation already — that system is now at capacity.

 

In 2019 Section 21 notices were the primary cause of homelessness in the UK. We cannot return to this situation. The biggest threat to our security and safety right now is the way Section 21 is being used.

 

No-one should lose their home during a pandemic. The safety of those individuals and of the public as a whole are put at risk when sections of society are unable to practice social distancing. One in six homeless households (17%) are currently placed into emergency B&Bs and hostels, where poor conditions and gross overcrowding are rife. Evictions should only be used in extreme cases and at the current time, only when safe alternative accommodation can be provided.

 

Independent think-tank, Resolution Foundation has called for loans to help tenants to clear their arrears, but this is not the answer. You can’t dig your way out of arrears with more debt. Where do people get the money to make the repayments? The country narrowly avoided technical recession in 2019 and since the banking crisis in 2008 wages have stagnated.

 

The additional burden of the pandemic means we are not recovering any time soon. According to the ONS, redundancies hit a record high of 370,000 in October last year, the highest since records began in 1992.

 

Even those who were furloughed, many of whom were struggling to get by on the minimum wage, are now only getting 80% of that. How can they be expected to make up the shortfall?

 

Renters in the private and social rented sector are the least affluent, the worst affected by the effects of Coronavirus and the most likely to hold key worker positions on the frontline of the crisis. A unilateral call for rent cancellation avoids anybody falling through the gaps for any reason.

 

If we take a look at who has power in our society, we can see why this is happening. 24% of Tory MPs, 18% of Lib Dems and 9% of the SNP are landlords. Of the 17 Labour MPs who are landlords 9 of them now have seats in the Shadow Cabinet. The government’s duty is to ensure the health and wellbeing of its citizens first and foremost, but here we have yet another example of MPs looking after their own interests instead.

 

Not only is the government simply avoiding addressing this problem by incrementally extending the ban at the last minute every time, but the threat of eviction constantly hangs over tenants and after a year of worry, the mental health of many tenants is being affected.

 

A long term solution is required. We need legislation — a Renters Reform Bill — that includes a raft of measures to ensure the health, safety and security of tenants, including longer lets, landlord licensing and rent controls. On top of this, we need action to replenish our council housing stock. Council housing is the only real solution to the housing crisis, and must form part of any future plan for UK housing. Moreover, a new council housing program would provide long term steady work for the construction industry which could go some way to helping our battered economy.

 

So, how do we win these demands? As noted, the political elite in this country represent the interests of the landlords. Our only hope as tenants and workers is to collectivise and speak out against this. We can put huge pressure on the government to make meaningful change. We’ve seen this work many times during the pandemic. Over the last year the government was forced into numerous U-turns over a whole range of issues, because of trade and tenant unions, community organisations and pressure groups brought people together to speak out as one voice.

 

The bravery and solidarity of the student rent strikes is inspirational, particularly the 9K4WHAT? campaign at the University of Manchester last year. Students occupied a building on the Fallowfield campus and won an unprecedented £12million rent rebate — small potatoes for the university, which reported a £40million ‘surplus’ in 2018-19.

 

At the beginning of the year, the NEU held a record breaking zoom rally, attended by 70,000 members with 400,000 people viewing online. They successfully prevented the premature re-opening of schools — protecting staff, children and families.

 

We should remember these successes and others, not only since the pandemic but throughout history, where the exploited and oppressed have collectivised to call for justice with one voice. The tenants movement has a strong tradition of refusing to bow to the establishment. Join us — we have a world to win!

 

 

Allison Fewtrell sits on the executive committee of the Greater Manchester Tenants Union.

 

Image credit: "Tenant Rights Protect Families banner at Tenant Rights Rally - December 2017" by Backbone Campaign is licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

By Richard Goulding (@richmg_)

 

Brett Christophers, Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?, Verso Books, October 2020.

 

 

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Richard Goulding is a housing researcher based in Manchester.

 

Image credit: "Marlsbro House, Newton Street, Manchester" by Stephen Richards is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

This article was made possible due to support from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

 

By Trees Not Cars (@TreesNotCars)

 

 

Trees Not Cars have won a judicial review against Manchester City Council, blocking them from using the former Central Retail Park as a temporary 440-space car park next to the city centre’s only primary school.

 

It marks a major victory for a grassroots community group that has campaigned tirelessly for over 18 months to stop the plans which completely ignored the impact on air pollution in an attempt to force the plans through. The judgement reflects the legitimate fears of over 12,000 people who signed Trees Not Cars’ petition against the car park plans.

 

Gemma Cameron says, “We have stopped the council from putting a car park next to a primary school. This is the first time we are aware of a community group beating the council in a legal challenge. It shows that organised community groups can take on Manchester City Council and win. It’s time for communities to fight back.”

​

The judgment in the case of (Gemma) Cameron (a founder of Trees Not Cars) vs Manchester City Council was published  this morning. Cameron was represented by leading planning lawyers John Hunter and Piers Riley-Smith of Kings Chambers in Manchester. Manchester council was represented by a team of lawyers led by Christopher Katkowski QC, a London-based barrister said to be one of the leading planning specialists in the country.

​

Katkowski is an advisor to Boris Johnson’s Government and architect behind the Government’s proposed controversial new planning laws that would see sweeping changes to the planning system. The planning changes have been sharply criticised by Manchester councillors, researchers, and campaigners.

​

The decision found that Manchester Council had 

• Failed to consider the impact of air quality on the local area around Ancoats

• Failed to consider the impact of building a polluting 440-space car park next to the only primary school in Manchester city centre.

• Was unlawful in that the Council recommended planning approval based on the wrong information, the wrong air quality assessment, and traffic analysis.

​

​

The campaign revealed that prior to the crucial planning meeting that the Leader of the Council and Councillor Pat Karney wrote emails suggestive of seeking to influence the planning committee’s decision. Councillor Leese reminding Councillors that “When the Council agreed to buy out the lease on the site we also agreed to temporary uses including car parking to meet the cost of purchase and holding costs, costs of around £2m a year, whilst the master planning and marketing of the site took place. In the longer term we do need to recover at least £40m from the site.”

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Questions were also raised as to why it was in the days leading up to the meeting Councillor Karney, (Labour Group ‘Whip’, Chair of the Constitutional and Nomination Committee, Executive Member for the City Centre)  reconstituted the Planning Committee. One of the Councillors added to the committee on the 8th October 2019 was Cllr John Flanagan,  just 9 days before the meeting. Councillor Flanagan was part of an executive group that worked on the purchase of the site with the Abu Dhabi group in 2017. It was Councillor Flannagan who proposed the amendment which was passed at the planning meeting.

​

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Gemma Cameron says, “Manchester’s Labour council instructed probably the most expensive planning Barristers in England in an attempt to crush a community group fighting for clean air for children. Even faced with the threat of us paying their exorbitant costs, we did not back down. We are absolutely thrilled that John Hunter and Piers Riley-Smith, our wonderful Mancunian Barristers have helped us achieve this landmark victory. It also would not have been possible without the enormous support and generous donations from the Manchester community who supported us in stopping this unnecessary car park from being built. We thank the 3 councillors who stood up to Leese and went against this application, citing the exact grounds we took to court. Now that we have won, we need to turn serious attention to questioning the judgement and competence of the Council in using public money to pursue a polluting car park at enormous expense to the taxpayer.”

 

Julia Kovaliova is a lead organiser of Trees Not Cars. She is a mother of three, with two of her sons attending New Islington Free School next to the site. Her eldest son, who is eleven, developed asthma 5 years ago.

 

“I am delighted by the judge’s decision and will be able to sleep easier at night knowing my son who has asthma won’t be exposed to even greater levels of air pollution. Our victory must be a wake-in up call for the Council, who can’t continue to prioritise car parks and offices over clean air and green space. They must now go back to their plans for Central Retail Park and include significant green space with trees, grass, and playgrounds for families.”

​

The campaign is now calling for the council to reopen their development framework for the 10 acre site to genuine community input. Trees Not Cars, following their legal victory, have reiterated their call that the Council “must now include significant green space and affordable housing on the site.”

​

Gemma Cameron added, “It’s time that Sir Richard Leese retire. After a quarter of a century, we need a fresh, new council leader in touch with the people of Manchester. Someone who fosters a new culture in Town Hall where residents are considered allies not enemies. Someone to fight our climate emergency and solve our housing crisis, making Manchester an affordable green city for all.”

 

The group are also calling for reform of the Manchester City Council’s planning department and consultation processes. Questioning why planning officers recommended an unlawful application for approval, and why a majority of councillors voted for the application.  While the planning department needs scrutiny, the consultation process should be reformed so that residents are brought into the planning process from the start of an application and not at the end when it’s too late to meaningfully feed into plans.

 

Julia Kovaliova says, “This is our city. Residents need a seat at the table. It’s time Manchester City Council pulled out a chair.”

 

The council are seeking to appeal the decision. Trees Not Cars questions whether fighting a ruling to ensure the council considers air quality for children and residents is a good use of tax payers money.

 

The group also points out they offered to settle out of court with MCC last summer and they refused. They now want to know who gave the order for the refusal to talk to the campaigners.

​

Gemma Cameron asks, "How many school meals could have been paid for with the thousands spent on fighting a community group representing the views of the people of Manchester."

 

Further notes

During the court hearing we learned the council no longer intended to open the car park.

Our legal action stopped the car park being opened over the 2 years of permission.

 

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Greater Manchester Housing Action welcome today's decision. We have been a consistent supporter of the Trees Not Cars campaign, and believe that the successful appeal raises serious questions about the planning process in Manchester.

 

This press release originally appeared on the Trees Not Cars website.

 

 

By Greater Manchester Labour for a Green New Deal (@mcrLabGND)

 

Storm Christoph showed that Manchester is susceptible to the adverse effects of extreme weather events, which are forecast to become more regular occurrences.

 

Greater Manchester Labour for a Green New Deal argue that we must abandon the idea of developing on greenbelt, and instead embrace bold alternatives which reflects the urgency of the climate crisis﹣starting with sites like Carrington Moss.

 

This piece originally appeared in the Manchester Meteor.

 

Storm Christoph left swathes of south Manchester submerged in floodwater last month. Greater Manchester declared a major incident, as the River Mersey burst its banks and hundreds of properties were evacuated overnight.

 

In the wake of the deluge, thousands of Twitter users shared images of high water levels at Stubley Meadows in Littleborough near Rochdale, where 96 homes are being built. Russell Homes, the developer of the site, has said it is not building any homes in the submerged area shown in the photo, and insist the images posted actually show onsite flood water drainage systems are working. Nevertheless, locals have expressed concern about the development on this particular site which is at a high risk of flooding, and the way the image went viral shed light on widespread dissatisfaction from citizens in Greater Manchester about building on flood plains.

 

Indeed, Stubley Meadows was no isolated incident. Developers are building on sites at risk of flooding across the conurbation, from Carrington Moss to Ryebank Fields. This is symptomatic of a broader issue of building on greenbelt land in Greater Manchester. This is itself a function of the UK government’s requirement for local authorities to provide a five years’ housing land supply. This explains why the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) releases so much of the city region’s precious greenbelt; a purported lack of brownfield land in the city region means the Greater Manchester Combined Authority must release greenbelt to meet the government’s requirement.

 

However, this imperative hinges on the argument that Manchester needs more employment, specifically office space. But with more people than ever working from home, Covid spells a weakening of the city centre-centric, office-based economy. Fewer workers are commuting to and from their places of work because of the pandemic. Even after the health threat from Covid-19 is over, it’s likely that many employers will continue to allow staff to work from home, given the cost savings. The predicted growth of office space and homes in the region may need to be recalculated, along with reconsidering where these buildings are best placed.

 

The latest release of the GMSF in 2020 has reduced the amount of Green Belt that will be released to build on, but it still reduces the overall coverage of Green Belt in GM from 46.9% to 45.3%, a drop of 1.6% which is equal to 1,939 hectares, or 2,693 full sized football pitches. This is still too much given the changing economic landscape. As one Manchester councillor put it at a council planning committee meeting in November, it would be “contextually illiterate to consider that there will not be permanent changes to the local… office market resulting from Covid-19.”

 

Reallocating brownfield sites earmarked for offices to provide housing would help councils meet the government’s housing land supply requirement. Evidence shows that Greater Manchester’s 1,500 undeveloped brownfield sites could deliver more than half of the 201,000 homes the GMCA wants to build by 2024. We stand with Friends of Carrington Moss in calling for a post-Covid review of land supply in Greater Manchester, to determine how much land is really needed in the city region for offices.

 

Even if councils and developers concede it is unnecessary to build on greenbelt, they will argue that the development of greenbelt land is more profitable due to the comparatively higher costs of surveying, de-contamination and clearing of brownfield sites. However, many of our greenfield locations carry hidden development costs. Geo-environmental appraisal reports carried out on land adjacent to Carrington Moss, for example, have found traces of cyanide, arsenic and asbestos, speculated to be leftover from the Shell chemical works nearby. The claim that greenbelt development vis-a-vis its brownfield counterpart is a comparatively cost-effective venture is not always the case.

 

This kind of sleight of hand obscures the injudiciousness of brownfield site development. Take flood risks as an example. Currently, there are huge disparities between flood risks noted by government services, and the reality experienced in the communities around development sites. A pertinent example of this can be found in the government planning assistance service, offered to developers to help assess risk to future developments. This service only rates flood risk from river or sea, leaving sites that are renowned for surface flooding﹣like Carrington Moss﹣to be green-lighted for development.

 

As Storm Christoph showed, Manchester is sitting on an extreme weather bomb when it comes to flooding. We simply must improve our climate resilience by managing the flow of water through the environment. The best way to do that, as the former head of the Environment Agency has said, is by conserving flood-prone greenbelt in the form of wetland habitats﹣not by building on it.

 

Peatlands like Carrington Moss are also precious natural assets for combatting the dual environmental crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. Peatlands not only absorb large volumes of water, making them an effective tool for flood defence, but are also invaluable carbon sinks, with the ability to store up to ten times the amount of atmospheric carbon per hectare than any other form of vegetation. Leaving peatlands undisturbed is one strategy that leaders like Andy Burnham can use to reduce our carbon emissions.

 

Peat bogs are also low nutrient ecosystems on which biodiversity relies. Destroying peatland causes an influx of nutrients, particularly phosphorus, which can lead to the destruction of plant species vital to the survival of local fauna. Numerous plant species within Carrington Moss provide shelter and food to countless invertebrates, which in turn provide the vital food source for birds found in the area, many of which are currently on the IUCN red-list of endangered species such as the willow tit. Development will destroy their habitat and contribute to their extinction. It is simply unconscionable for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to allow the destruction of peatland to go ahead, given the staggering biodiversity loss we have already seen in the UK.

 

Instead of exacerbating the environmental issues of extreme weather events and biodiversity loss by concreting over mosslands and flood plains, we should be giving serious consideration to the alternatives. There is a growing cache of credible alternative development sites on brownfield locations. Several of these sites, as discovered by Friends of Carrington Moss, are not listed on government brownfield site surveys, such as the huge disused site of the Cartwright Group manufacturers in Trafford. It is likely that other suitable sites are also not listed as brownfield.

 

In addition to alternative development sites located for housing, there have also been alternative sites raised for infrastructural development and transport strategy. Much of the prospective road development also crosses flood-prone moss land that remains un-noted by current records of land supply. Friends of Carrington Moss have included in their development plan a suggestion to upgrade current traffic routes, which circumnavigate the moss and surrounding villages, and to build a bridge over the Ship Canal and linking directly to the A57, which then links to the M6 and the M60.

 

This alternative land supply is not only effective at addressing local environmental concerns, but also provides a genuinely more effective development strategy by pointing to direct access to amenities and schools in Irlam, at the other side of the shipping canal. Despite the claims made on the developer’s website, who have no plans to build schools or amenities themselves, the current plans only provide access to schools in the urban centres to the east of Carrington that are already stretched in terms of class sizes. This would have the added benefit of creating good green jobs, enabling the site to act as a potential hub for the transition to the manufacture of renewables and supportive technologies.

 

We, nor the Friends of Carrington Moss, are anti-development. We want to see the demand for housing and employment met through a rationally planned use and distribution of available land resources that carefully balances environmental, economic and social concerns. Considering what is at stake these are reasonable demands, amidst an irrational planning system commanded by short-termist stakeholders.

 

 

By Lily Gordon Brown (@lilygbrown)

 

 

 

The LS26 ‘Save Our Homes’ campaign recently received the devastating news that Pemberstone Ltd’s appeal was successful. Residents of the Oulton Estate now face the demolition of their homes in the name of developer profits. This is indicative of a far wider trend across the UK housing landscape: intense marketisation and social cleansing.

 

The LS26 Campaign

 

“The appeal is allowed and planning permission is granted for the demolition of the existing dwellings and the erection of 70 dwellings including associated infrastructure at Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close.”

 

It was with these words, delivered only 12 days ago, that the devastating verdict of the court was handed down to the residents and campaigners of the LS26 Save Our Homes group. After years of campaigning against the demolition of their homes, which were built amidst the housing drive of post-war England, the court has accepted Pemberstone Ltd’s appeal. This judgment opens the route for the destruction of the residents’ homes and the forced displacement of the ex-mining community.

 

Histories: Near and Far  

 

The estate in Oulton was originally constructed to house miners. It was bought by the then recently nationalised National Coal Board (NCB), due to the surge in coal production during and after the war. The new homes, ‘prefabs’ in Airey design, were built as part of a wave of prefabricated houses in the 1950s which aimed to meet the needs for a rapid expanse of housing stock across post-war Britain.

 

Whilst prefabs were designed to only last a few decades, they’ve since proved themselves to be ‘robust and comfortable houses’, with many still standing today. As a sustainable medium-term solution to the housing crisis currently facing the UK, defences of prefab construction have recently emerged, with some arguing for its return today.

 

By the 1980s, the NCB houses found themselves victim to Thatcher’s energy for privatisation of the UK’s public housing. The reason posed to the residents for selling was concern over ‘subsidence’ — the state of disrepair the houses were in — echoing the ‘managed decline’ we hear so much about today. Furthermore, somewhat controversially, the NCB homes were not included in Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme, upsetting many of the tenants of the estate.

 

Instead, ownership was passed into the hands of private landlords, Renshaw & Sons Ltd. By 1989, many residents had departed the estate out of fear for their safety; houses across the estate were suffering from severe disrepair. Chiming with the realities of the present day, the new landlords neglected any complaints regarding repairs and thus forced residents out of their homes. In the years following, part of the estate redeveloped and sold on at ‘market value’, leaving only Sugar Hill Close and Wordsworth Drive as ‘affordable’ rental properties in the area.

 

By 2004, the properties remaining in a private rent scheme had been sold to Pemberstone Ltd. In 2017, the investment company announced their plans to demolish the homes comprising Wordsworth Drive and Sugar Hill Close. Residents were invited, via a leaflet through the door, to attend a ‘community consultation’ held by Pemberstone whereby they were presented with posters displaying an array of new housing on the estate. Despite Pemberstone’s claim that the housing stock would be replenished with the same number of houses, only a mere 15% would be made available at “affordable” prices.

 

This story of the Oulton Estate is a clear case of managed decline. Despite consistent complaints of maintenance and disrepair, Pemberstone neglected conducting any upkeep of the properties. With the housing stock run down, Pemberstone were able to make the case that demolition was the only option. Demolition would allow them to unlock the site, which backs onto attractive fields, for more profitable upmarket developments.

 

This fits into the wider trend we are seeing across the country: ex-social housing estates, run down by their owners to the point where ‘redevelopment’ takes precedence over repairs or expanding the social housing stock. This has only become a greater concern for residents of Oulton since the government’s publication of their Planning Futures White Paper in Summer 2020, to be discussed later.

 

 

Recent Happenings

 

After a protracted battle between Pemberstone and the residents of the Oulton Estate, Leeds City Council sided with the residents, rejecting the planning proposal. Undeterred, Pemberstone took it to appeal, determined to find a means of realising the profit potential of the site. The case moved to the courts.

 

The LS26 residents’ campaign, as Cindy recently confirmed to me, thought they’d done enough “to persuade the inspector [of the appeal] that Leeds planning refusal was the correct thing”, but he judged otherwise. His only concession was to call for a ‘hereditary report’ of the estate to take place prior to demolition.

 

Despite the heroic efforts of the Residents Action Group, who worked tirelessly to bring the community together and have displace a collective spirit that feels rare today expose their experiences to the nation, it appears that developer rule victorious once again. Hazell Field, social media coordinator of the Resident Action Group, tweeted in light of the appeal decision: ‘the fact I [/we] have nowhere to go doesn’t matter. A community split-up is irrelevant, it’s just about money for [the] landlord.’

 

On the other side, Pemberstone’s planning consultant Matthew Sheppard took to Facebook to celebrate his appeal’s success: “as always, a methodical approach combined with a rational presentation of the facts, helped secure approval in this highly emotive case”. Shepard’s acknowledgement of the emotional turmoil of the case, yet his glee that #housingdevelopment triumphs, offers us a clear distillation of the attitudes of the developers and their agents.

 

 

Not deterred, Cindy told me the Residents Action Group will not give up the fight for their homes and livelihoods. They plan to engage in further talks with Leeds City Council, as they have not yet ruled the council buying the estate and having it as housing stock: “we do not believe they have yet explored all avenues on how they can help.” What is certain is that the fight is not over, and all concerned with housing justice should be concerned with what happens at the Oulton Estate.

 

Social Housing Under Threat

 

Unfortunately, the Oulton Estate case is not an anomaly. Estates across the country are being bought out by private investors and rendered increasingly inaccessible to low-income renters.

 

Another example of this has been the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield which was characterised by ACORN Sheffield members as a  “pioneer example of social housing”. However, the iconic brutalist council flats started to show signs of disrepair throughout the 1990s. A product of state negligence, well-managed social housing had become a thing of the past following Thatcher’s reign. In 1998, the local government moved to list the building a Grade II* as a means of “attracting developers”. The listing initially failed to meet their hopes until 2007 when Urban Splash — the Manchester-based property developers — came up with the not-so-novel “concept” to: “rejuvenate the flats by turning them into a mixture of departments, business units and social housing.”

 

Phase two of their scheme begun in February of 2020, renovating and “up-marketing” flats across the Park Hill estate, valued on the market between £175,000 and £245,000. The redevelopment is shutting out the social housing tenants residing there. Furthermore, Urban Splash have made more explicit attempts to out the tenants by increasing the bills exponentially during the height of the pandemic. The case was picked up by ACORN Sheffield, who stepped into to support the community. The tenants organised and demanded a cancellation of the raised bills, and through campaigning they victorious.

 

These stories, just two of many, reflect the magnification of the housing crisis across the UK. A trend which has largely been confined to London over the past decade is now presenting itself across the country. Social housing has become attractive to private investors, with people’s homes constantly under threat of being made a financial asset. For example, Inside Housing estimated in 2017 that 40.2% of council housing stock sold to tenants under right-to-buy are now rented out, with multiple landlords profiteering off low-income communities.

 

Furthermore, in recent years housing has been commandeered by Housing Associations, further absconding the state of responsibility. Commonly perceived as not for profit, social enterprises, Housing Associations have in fact been drawn into the logic of the market, increasingly acting like private developers or landlords. Once a state-funded entity, Housing Associations now tend to be a hybrid of private and non-for-profit organisations, undoubtedly contributing to the unaffordability of ‘affordable’ housing.

 

Planning Futures Look Grim

 

Across the last forty years, the government has actively reshaped society in the interests of private profit, and housing is a crucial example of this. The government’s latest proposed intervention is of huge concern. Last August, the government presented their ‘Planning Futures White Paper’, a plan that, if enacted would mark a dangerous empowerment of private developer interests.

 

The proposal  fundamentally changes the planning process, allowing councils to give planning permission in advance by ‘zoning swathes of land for growth.’ Laurie Macfarlane, economics editor at OpenDemocracy and author of Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing, provided an in-depth oversight of the planning reforms and was particularly concerned with the proposed zoning system. Under this levied scheme, land would be designated for ‘growth’, ‘renewal’, or ‘protection’. The proposed levy unsurprisingly is predicted to disadvantage low ‘value’ land in lower-income areas. To Macfarlane: “the effect of this is essentially to transfer power away from local elected representatives towards private developers”. David Madden, sociologist at the LSE specialising on housing, also voiced concern on Twitter at the proposal: “council estates will be zone for “growth” and a new wave of redevelopment, dispossession and displacement will ensue.

 

The LS26 residents have also articulated their trepidations over Jenrick’s recent planning proposals:

 

“More recently, Jenrick has been working on one of the biggest “shake ups” of the housing sector in Britain. His plans? To remove local council decision-making in    planning, and to divide land across the country into zones for growth, renewal or             protection…

 

It rips away some of the safety nets of affordable housing, it offers nothing for tenants and sets the country up for a future of low-quality “slum” housing. Developers must be rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect.”

 

The move by the government is driven by its desire to protect the class interests of developers and property investors. Given the gross power already in the hands of property developers, the extension of state support for private investment is incredibly concerning.

 

Despite the seeming defeat, the LS26 campaign has been able to hold its own partly because Leeds City Council was able to take decisions on a ‘case-by-case basis’. Zoning will undercut these possibilities, leaving more estates across the country exposed to demolition.

 

The numerous manifestations of the housing crisis — demolition, privatisation, and redevelopment — must be faced head on. As the government continue empower developers, we must collectivise and fight for housing justice. This fight is evidenced in unions such as ACORN, LRU and GMTU and by community groups such as the Resident Action Group. But we also need the parliamentary opposition to fight for tenants’ rights, to fight for genuinely affordable social housing and to re-instate in Britain what was once in John Boughton’s words a ‘Municipal Dream’.

 

 

The LS26 campaign is still raising money for their legal case, you can support them here.

 

Lily Gordon Brown is a graduate from the University of Leeds and the comms officer at ACORN Nottingham. Her writing also appears in Tribune Magazine.

 

Photo credit: @SaveOurHomeLS26

 

By Nick Bano (@NickBano)

 

We republish Nick Bano's analysis of how Thatcher's legislation laid the groundwork for today's housing crisis, creating the 'rise' of the landlords, and how the contradictions of the system and the response of the organised renters movement may be ushering in the conditions for their 'fall'. It originally appeared on Legal Form: A Forum for Marxist Analysis of Law.

 

When telling a story, the old wisdom says that one should start with a simple, incontrovertible truth, and spin it out from there.

 

The simple, incontrovertible truth is that property laws affect land value and profits. To take a straightforward example, look at architectural critic Michael Sorkin’s account of the invention of ‘air rights’ in New York:

 

“The signal event in the creation of the modern concept of air right was the construction, in 1915, of the Equitable Building in lower Manhattan. […] The Equitable cast an enormous shadow that prompted the city to draft its seminal zoning code of 1916 […] This, at a stroke, created a special value for air — for the void — that restricted the absolute capacity of a developer to occupy the space above the plane of ownership”.^[1]

 

To spin it out from there: the UK’s Housing Act 1988 was never really about housing. It was about profits from land. The Act has created a hugely profitable housing market out of virtually nothing.

 

The rise

 

The Thatcher government inherited an embarrassment of riches at the end of the 1970s: a surplus of council housing, with a very small private rented sector on the side.  From the 1930s onwards, particularly in London, local governments had been interested in “wresting housing out of the hands of slum landlords”^[2], and by 1979 that project had been broadly successful.  The scale and quality of local authority-built homes had simply out-competed private landlordism in many areas by the time that Thatcher came to power.

 

The housing laws of the 1980s were designed to reverse that decline: to prioritise private housing over public housing, in keeping with the broader neoliberal project.  The government was totally honest about that aim in its White Paper Housing: the Government’s Proposals, and pointed out that the private rented sector had fallen to just 8% of homes in Britain.

 

The major purpose of the legislation was to set the conditions for the creation, and then the constant expansion, of a profitable housing market.  It was a market that would be created through legislation — the stroke of a pen — rather than anything to do with the actual homes that were going to generate these enormous new profits (the state was not, for example, about to build new homes for rent, or improve the condition of existing buildings).  In effect this was a financial bill, not a housing one.

 

Others have explained the dramatic impact of the sales of council housing under the ‘right to buy’ scheme, and the important shift from state-backing of the supply side (through building housing) to state-backing of the demand side (through a housing benefits system of grants to private landlords)^[3].  But one point that is often overlooked — or at least underplayed — is the effect of the very existence of assured shorthold tenancies under the 1988 Act (as amended by the Major government in 1996).

 

Before emergency Coronavirus measures came into force in 2020, assured shorthold tenants (by far the most common type of tenure in the private rented sector) whose ‘fixed term’ period (usually six or 12 months) had come to an end were entitled to just two months’ notice, after which a landlord could apply to the courts for an eviction order under a special ‘accelerated procedure’.  The landlord does not need to give a reason for the eviction, and is entitled to a possession order as of right.

 

In economic terms, these assured shorthold tenancies walk softly, but carry a big stick.  This extremely limited security of tenure — in reality the constant threat of eviction — means that landlords can demand new rents whenever the market allows by simply inviting the tenant to sign a new tenancy agreement.  This, of course, means that private sector rents rise very quickly.  The rent controls that technically apply to all assured shorthold tenancies (under section 13) are obsolete if a tenant can be evicted within weeks.  Indeed, any calls for rent control are totally pointless unless security of tenure is introduced as well (i.e. unless the 1988 Act framework is effectively repealed). Easy no-fault evictions are the key ingredient of the profitability of the private rented sector.

 

By design, therefore, landlordism became increasingly profitable under the 1988 Act, and changes to tax arrangements and ancillary regulatory measures helped to nourish Thatcher’s landlords to a greater or lesser extent over the years. This profitability also spread outwards from the rented sector. The housing sales market doesn’t draw a distinction between buy-to-let and owner-occupier homes — they all come from the same pot — which means that an increase in the value of buy-to-let homes drives up all housing costs.

 

For 30 years, the 1988 Act performed its function perfectly. It created a profitable housing market out of nothing but statutory rules. That was its main purpose, and it worked.

 

As housing necessarily became less and less affordable, ownership has now become increasingly concentrated in a smaller and wealthier part of the population.  We are now at the logical endpoint of the 1988 Act’s project.  It is obvious that a former council flat in an unremarkable 1960s block is not worth one million pounds: the success of the 1988 Act was to open a gulf between the value of property as homes, and the amount for which that same property changes hands. This is a classic example of exchange value becoming completely divorced from use value.

 

Under this framework, the value of real property is consistently expanding, shielded (through quantitative easing and non-domestic capital investment^[4]) even from the global financial turmoil of 2008. The luxury flats peppering the skylines of major British cities are not the manifestation of a prosperous and comfortably-housed population, but an aberration: financial securities that stand in gross contrast to the intolerable and overpriced living conditions of the populations of major cities.

 

The fall

 

There’s a moment in the film The Big Short when Steve Carrell’s hedge fund manager character reads the financial smoke signals and declares that, in the US, “housing is a bubble”, and we then spend the rest of the film watching it burst. What would it take to see that happen in the UK? More pressingly, has this already happened to Thatcher’s housing law framework? Have we seen the moment of its greatness flicker?

 

Like all models of perpetual growth and accumulation, the system created by the Housing Act 1988 must eventually reach a point of crisis.

 

For the moment — surprisingly — the housing market is “performing extremely well”. The government has pulled out all the stops to stop it from     collapsing.  A combination of a ‘stamp duty holiday’ (a temporary waiver of an expensive transaction tax on home buyers) and the sudden realisation that people don’t need to live near their workplaces seems to have caused something of a rush of demand among buyers.  The tendency of furlough payments to fall into landlords’ pockets is probably also keeping things buoyant. But this house price stability shouldn’t be happening — the collapse of the top end of the rental market, falling rents in cities and the anticipated gridlock in the court system (delaying eviction cases) should be deflating them.   If landlordism is what has driven house prices up, plummeting rental profits should surely undermine them.  It seems that a collapse is being temporarily masked by a glut of urgent demand before the stamp duty holiday ends in March 2021 — and perhaps before a Steve Carrell figure tells us that the emperor is no longer wearing any clothes.

 

Housing activists are seizing this moment. We are already seeing a nascent mass movement in response to ‘Manctopia’ property boom. In Liverpool City Region a new land commission is leading by example in the struggle to wean local authorities off their addiction to land speculation disasters, and we must celebrate and encourage that.  London Renters Union has doubled its membership in recent months.

 

This is a critical moment because the processes of the 1988 Act have been interrupted. The assured shorthold tenancy has dropped its big stick: under new emergency public health measures, almost no evictions have been allowed since March 2020. Under normal circumstances the profits of landlordism are underwritten by the landlords’ use of state-backed force, but that has suddenly fallen away.  With that in mind, perhaps it is no coincidence that house price inflation had been so much slower in the North of Ireland than in Great Britain.  This anomaly may be connected to the fact that in the Six Counties there are no bailiffs, and evictions are instead carried out by the Northern Ireland Executive’s Enforcement of Justice Office (there is also a strong tradition of anti-landlord organising in Ireland).

 

How is a landlord supposed to increase the rent now, during this moment of interruption?  They cannot convincingly threaten an eviction, so they will have to rely on the statutory mechanism (which is pinned to ‘market’ rents, but market rents are falling), or hope that their tenancy agreement has a contractual rent increase clause.  The law no longer meets the needs of a landlord class that has become dependent on staggering rent increases.

 

Just as in 1988, a Conservative government continues to be perfectly frank about the fact that its housing law policies are really about economics.  Despite having promised the abolition of easy no-fault evictions in the 2019 manifesto and then again in the Queen’s Speech, the housing minister Christopher Pincher said in Parliament that the government won’t actually do this until there is a “sensible and stable economic and social terrain”. In effect, the government candidly admits that it can’t grant tenants rights until the economy recovers. This isn’t poor economics on the government’s part.  As set out above, quick evictions are at the heart of the profits of the private rented sector, and the private rented sector is, in turn, at the heart of booming house prices.  Land speculation is now one of the UK’s biggest industries, so it is unsurprising that the government is desperately clinging on to Thatcher’s model.

 

As the 1988 Act settlement has started to break down, the economic juggernaut of the booming housing market might be starting to turn around.  For the first time in living memory, serious doubts have started to emerge about the perpetual increase in the profits that Thatcher sought to guarantee for private landlords. Those profits were the foundation on which the housing crisis was built.  And tenants can play their part in this process by standing on their statutory rights, limited as they are: tenants are entitled to a valid notice (which can be complicated), and are entitled to occupy until the court orders their eviction.  The more that tenants take up this unique opportunity to delay and interrupt the processes of the 1988 Act, the greater the threat to the housing market.

 

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[1] 'The Fungibility of Air', reproduced in What Goes Up: The Right and Wrongs to the City, (Verso, 2018).

[2] Owen Hatherley, Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London, (Repeater, 2020), p.69.

[3] See, e.g. Anna Minton, Big Capital, (Penguin, 2017); Raquel Rolnik, Urban Warfare, (Verso, 2019).

[4] Minton, p.14-15

 

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Nick Bano is a barrister specialising in housing and homelessness cases, and a housing activist in London.

 

By Kerrie McGiveron (@kerriemcgiv)

 

‘There is no doubt that the Kirkby development will be a very attractive one, and the standards of designs, not only for the layout, but in the individual dwellings will be high.’^[1]

Ronald Bradbury, Architect and Director of Housing for Liverpool, 1953

 

‘I wonder if they built these flats deliberately to hurt us.’^[2]

Female resident of Tower Hill, 1974

 

Kirkby

 

Kirkby, a rural parish made up mainly of farmland, was purchased by Liverpool Corporation to ease the housing crisis in Liverpool city centre in the 1950s. The local press covered the development of the new town, including an article by the Chair of Liverpool Corporation. He assured readers that those relocated to Kirkby would have all the necessary amenities for them to lead a ‘happy and contented life.’^[3]

 

The ambitious slum clearance plan was to move 50,000 tenants from inner city slums into rural Kirkby over six years.^[4] However, transport, amenities, and leisure facilities were not provided, resulting in isolation and discontent.^[5] The inadequacy of the administration was noted in the local press, with Kirkby being labelled ‘the baby no-one wants.’^[6]

 

 

A police report by Sergeant Norman Chappell was published in 1972 detailing Kirkby’s social and economic malaise covering crime, housing, and unemployment. The high-rise flats on the Tower Hill estate were a particular cause for concern. Complaints were common in the tower blocks, which were small, poorly insulated with obtrusive plumbing noises, causing considerable psychological distress to the inhabitants. One tenant described the conditions that people were living in the tower blocks as ‘sub-human.’^[7] It was reported in the press that the River Alt running a mile through the centre of Kirkby was ‘the worst polluted stretch of water in the world, containing cyanide and arsenic.’^[8]

 

The failings of Kirkby’s town planning were eventually exposed in the late 1970s. An investigation by the Centre for Environmental Studies concluded that ‘policy-makers and planners must carry considerable responsibility for failing to ensure means and resources were available to implement the original plan.’^[9] Indeed, some of these people did carry the responsibility in the form of jail sentences. As reported in The Guardian in 1978, builder George Leatherbarrow, leader of the council David Tempest and architect William Marshall were all convicted of corruption for their part in the creation of the town of Kirkby, guilty of accepting bribes for contracts.^[10] Amongst evidence cited was the construction of a ski slope which was built over a main water pipe and reportedly facing the wrong way. At a cost of £100,000 the ski slope was demolished without ever being used.^[11]

 

The Housing Finance Act 1971: An Insult to Injury

 

Edward Heath’s Conservative government introduced the 1971 Housing Finance Act (HFA). Essentially, the HFA raised rents of local authority dwellings and promised rents that would reflect, ‘value by reference to its character, location, amenities and state of repair.’^[12] Known as the ‘fair rents act,’ those who could not afford the new rents would be entitled to a rebate, paid for by better-off tenants.^[13] However, it was raised in parliament by leader of the Labour party Harold Wilson that the take-up of means-tested payments would probably be low.^[14] Labour voted against implementing the act, but the party hierarchy urged Labour councillors to implement the act and negotiate the rent increase to protect tenants, resulting in struggles within the Labour Party and a split over the issue.^[15] The lack of organisation at local government level, compounded by impending threats by a central Conservative government hell-bent on getting its way meant that Labour-controlled councils conceded. Adding insult to injury to the poorly built housing on Tower Hill, it was reported that as well as the rent increase, rate rises in Kirkby were the third highest for any urban district in the country.^[16]

 

 

The HFA was set to affect more than 2,000 tenants living on the Tower Hill estate, and despite Labour council leader Dave Tempest’s reassurance that they would press for the ‘lowest possible rent increase,’ tenants were already planning to organise.<^[17]  Tower Hill Unfair Rents Action Group (THURAG) was formed, made up of residents, the International Socialists, and communist activists. THURAG’s secretary Tony Boyle announced to the local press: ‘as soon as the Housing Finance Act is implemented, the council will have a total rent and rate strike on their hands.’^[18] The rent strike would involve over 2,000 residents on Tower Hill, span fourteen months and leave a lasting impression.

 

‘On Rent Strike’

 

During the rent strike, workers at the BirdsEye factory on Kirkby Industrial Estate who participated in the rent strike marches were suspended. In response, tenants organised a mass picket; women with babies in prams and members of THURAG with loudhailers were joined by workers and dockers.^[19] They produced weekly leaflets to keep tenants aware of developments; lobbied council meetings and leafletted local factories for support.^[20] The Tower Hill estate was divided into eleven zones, each zone sub-divided and an anti-eviction system put in place. Groups of activists followed rent collectors around the estate to ensure there would be no ‘strike breakers.’^[21] Tenants were urged to send their rent demand letters back to sender with ‘on rent strike’ written in ink, and barriers were erected to keep the bailiffs out.

 

Under New Management

 

In January 1972, alongside the rent strike at this point in Kirkby was the occupation of Fisher-Bendix. Following redundancies, it began when 18 members of staff occupied the building, hanging a sign above the entrance that simply said ‘under new management.’^[22] The occupation lasted five weeks and was covered by the national press, with The Guardian, reporting that 600 workers had taken over the factory.^[23] Workers interviewed explained the novel implications of a sit-in rather than a strike, stating that women ‘were as involved as anyone else in the occupation.’^[24] The statement issued from the workers called on a complete boycott of Fisher Bendix products, specifically addressing housewives.^[25]

 

 

By March 1973, attachment of earnings orders were issued to rent strikers to reclaim the debt owed.^[26] In response, urged by THURAG, hundreds of people marched the streets of Kirkby. Activists urged tenants to unify in their struggle over rents and rates. In October 1973, court notices were sent to 36 tenants, all of whom refused to appear.

 

In early December, activists stormed the council offices in Kirkby town centre. Police arrived on the scene, and clashes ensued, tensions were high as the tenants were forcibly turned away from the council buildings.^[27] Two rent strikers, Brian Owen and Larry Doyle were arrested. In response, activists set off an air raid siren to alert people and roadblocks were set up. The radical fringe newspaper, Big Flame reported that over 100 tenants marched to Kirkby industrial estate to try and get support from factory workers.^[28]  When jail sentences were announced there was an immediate walk-out at Anglia Paper Products in Kirkby, and on Sunday the 9^th December, there was a demonstration of over 400 people outside Walton jail.^[29]  Activists used loud speakers to draw attention their cause, and Big Flame reported two coach loads of supporters from Manchester and Oldham attending in solidarity. ^[30] The newspaper enthusiastically reported that police were overwhelmed by the ‘organised defiance’ of the rent strikers.^[31] This also attracted the attention of the national press, with The Guardian reporting that demonstrators had been picketing since the men had been jailed, including Brian’s son, Paul, aged 4 who held a banner reading ‘Release my Daddy for Christmas.’^[32]

 

 

After 14 months the rent strike ended, and tenants were ordered to repay what they owed at a maximum rate of £1 a week.^[33] Amidst the unfolding national industrial unrest, including the miner’s strike and the subsequent blackouts and three-day working week, Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath called a general election, resulting in a hung parliament. Later that year, Labour took charge and repealed the punitive Housing Finance Act.

 

Although the rent strike in Kirkby was not a victory for the tenants, it would be wrong to dismiss it as a failure. The industrial action at BirdsEye and Fisher-Bendix alongside the rent strike in 1972 signalled a strength in unity among tenants and workers, offering some important insights into how unified resistance, organised defiance and joined-up class activism might continue today.

 

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[1] R. Bradbury, ‘New Ideas in Liverpool’s Biggest Housing Venture,’ Liverpool Daily Post, 29^th October, 1953

[2] Big Flame, ‘Notes on a Community Struggle,’ Big Flame, Women’s Struggle Notes 5 June-Aug 1975. Personal archive of K. McDonnell

[3] Bewley, ‘Liverpool’s Greatest Housing Scheme’, Liverpool Daily Post, 2nd May 1950

[4] N. Rankin, ‘Social Adjustment in a North West Town’ in K. G. Pickett, D. K. Boulton, Migration and Social Adjustment, Kirkby and Maghull (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1974), p.10

[5] D. M. Muchnick, Urban Renewal in Liverpool, A Study of the Politics of Redevelopment, (London: Bell, 1970), p.28

[6]‘Urban Status Plea For Kirkby,’ Liverpool Daily Post, 2 April 1956

[7] N. Rankin, ‘Social Adjustment in a North West Town’ in Kathleen G. Pickett, David K. Boulton, Migration and Social Adjustment, Kirkby and Maghull (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1974), p.21.

[8] Kirkby Urban District Council, Health and Housing Committee Report, 12 March 1973, Kirkby, Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK) KUDC Box 12/1,

[9] Centre for Environmental Studies (CES) Limited, Urban Resource Centre, Knowsley Metropolitan Council Merseyside County Council, Kirkby: An Outer Estate (Liverpool: 1982) p.7, Kirkby, Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK), R301.54

[10] ‘Builder and council men gaoled for bribes,’ The Guardian, 10^th June 1978

[11] ‘Jail for council men who took bribes,’ Daily Mail, 10^th June 1978

[12] Kirkby Urban District Council, Health and Housing: Agendas and reports for the Health and Housing committee meetings, 27 September 1971, Kirkby, Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK) KUDC Box 12/1

[13] The Liverpool Free Press reporting in 1971, announced that hundreds of thousands of tenants would never claim or receive the rebate that they were owed. The Liverpool Free Press, which was written by three Liverpool Echo journalists and promised to be ‘the news you’re not supposed to know,’ were responsible for investigating and exposing the corruption scandal of the development of Kirkby. Liverpool Free Press, August - September 1971, Liverpool Records Office, Class 072 FRE

[14] See Hansard, HC Deb, 2^nd November 1971, column 22 Wilson debated that the fair rents would on average double the rent of council tenants, as well as low successful applications for rent rebates.

[15] L. Sklair, ‘The Struggle Against the Housing Finance Act’, Socialist Register, (1975) Volume 12, p.253

[16] ‘Kirkby attack on ‘crippling rates, ’’ Liverpool Echo, 23rd November 1971

[17] ‘One vote brings Kirkby Rent Act,’ Liverpool Echo, 12^th September 1972. Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK) Rent and Rate Newspaper Archive 1970-1976

[18] ‘Rent Strike Threat Over Rises,’ Kirkby Reporter, 13^th September, 1972. Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK) Rent and Rate Newspaper Archive 1970-1976

[19] K. Singleton, Thousands Say, We Won’t Pay! Merseyside Tenants in Struggle, 1968 – 1973, (Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert, 2012,) p.174

[20] C. Oliver, Tower Hill, (unpublished document 2017.) C. Oliver’s personal archive

[21] ‘Liverpool Tenants Say ‘Rent Rise – Rent Strike,’ Big Flame No. 3, September 1972, Liverpool, Liverpool Records Office, M329 COM/36/9

[22] ‘Bendix – how the workers took over,’ Big Flame Leaflet, 1972. Reproduced online https://bigflameuk.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/bendix-how-the-workers-took-over.pdf [Accessed 14th August 2017]

[23] G. Whitely, ‘600 workers stage factory sit-in,’ The Guardian, 6^th January, 1972

[24] Big Flame, ‘Bendix – how the workers took over,’ (leaflet), 1972. Reproduced online https://bigflameuk.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/bendix-how-the-workers-took-over.pdf  [Accessed 14th August 2017

[25] Ibid

[26] Kirkby Urban District Council, Health and Housing Committee Minutes, 21 May, 1973. Archive Resource for Knowsley (ARK) KUDC Box 12/1

[27] Behind the Rent Strike Dir: Nick Broomfield (National Film School: 1974)  available online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anu9hlQ9iA [accessed 21^st July 2017]

[28] ‘Rent Striker Jailed – Hundreds Demonstrate outside Walton,’ Big Flame, December 1973, Liverpool Records Office, M329 COM/36/9

[29]‘A Lion’s Den by Rent Strikers,’ Kirkby Reporter, 12th December 1973

[30] ‘Rent Striker Jailed – Hundreds Demonstrate outside Walton,’ Big Flame, December 1973, Liverpool Records Office, M329 COM/36/9

[31] Ibid

[32] ‘Prison picket stops,’ The Guardian, 12^th December 1973

[33] Leslie Sklair, ‘The Struggle Against the Housing Finance Act’, Socialist Register, (1975) Volume 12, p.274

 

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Kerrie McGiveron is a PhD candidate at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests include 1970s Britain, the far-left, Big Flame (1970-1984) and the WLM.

 

On Tuesday 25th January she is speaking at a meeting organised by ACORN Liverpool on the Kirkby rent strikes. All details here.

 

By Dillon Newton, Philip Brown, Leanne Monchuck Rachel Armitage 

 

Fifty years ago housing in the UK was fairly decent. Renewal initiatives had tackled some of the worst urban housing conditions and the need for secure, affordable homes was met by newly-built social housing and relatively low barriers to home-ownership. However, in present-day, housing in the UK is widely considered to be in crisis. Underinvestment in social housing, a miss-match between supply and demand, increased financialisation and the growth of the private rented sector have created a dysfunctional system that is affecting individuals across age, regional and class divides. The National Housing Federation estimate that nearly 8 million people in England are living in some form of poor-quality, unaffordable or insecure housing, and that nearly a third (31%) of adults in the UK have experienced mental or physical health problems because of the condition of their housing during lockdown. Whilst homes have provided an important place of refuge and safety for many throughout the pandemic, inadequate and insecure housing because of the wider housing crisis has made lockdown unbearable for others.

 

A report from the University of Huddersfield provides insights into how people coped with poor housing conditions during the first national lockdown. We spoke to fifty households in the north of England between May and July 2020, as well as eight housing professionals who worked for local authorities, third sector organisations and a tenants union. Whilst poor quality housing in the UK is a national problem, the situation in the north of England is particularly severe. The Smith Institute estimate around 354,000 private rented properties and a million owner-occupied homes in the north fall below the Decent Homes Standard (a government measure in the social rented sector that aims to ensure housing meets set standards of decency). This is due to a concentration of older, colder and damper housing in the north, an issue made worse by almost half containing someone over 60 or someone with a long-term health condition.

 

The stories in our report are stark and unsettling. Two months after the UK government had instructed people to ‘stay at home’ to curtail the spread of COVID-19, the residents we interviewed were routinely accounting how the state of their homes were causing increased physical and mental ill-health. Many discussed feeling overwhelmed in small or overcrowded properties, an issue particularly acute for people who were high-risk and ‘shielding’, and for people without access to outdoor space and who were forced to endure record summer temperatures in properties prone to overheating. People in privately rented properties, in particular, felt increasingly insecure in their tenancies in a wider context of sudden drops in income and unexpected job losses. The majority of renters we spoke to described how existing housing conditions had ultimately worsened, with many households suspecting that landlords were using lockdown as an excuse to delay or indefinitely postpone repair works, even though repairs were permitted at the time the study was conducted. Others reported that their landlords had refused to arrange repairs, and people told us about leaking roofs and guttering, and about how water coming into their housing had created internal damage, damp and mould that was linked to the development of chesty coughs that were of greater concern in light of COVID-19. Our findings showed that people were not reporting or following up complaints with landlords, due to a fear of possible revenge evictions or rent increases which they could not afford. Many respondents explained how their homes were now costing more to run and maintain, with many putting paying for housing costs ahead of food and other outgoings. For many respondents, lack of control over rent, mortgage payments, energy costs and other outgoings was linked to a growth or a resurgence of stress, anxiety and depression.

 

Research has shown those most at risk of experiencing the worst impacts of the pandemic are people who are already vulnerable: those receiving benefits, living with long-term health conditions, in precarious employment or living in insecure or poor housing. However, what was particularly striking from our research was how many respondents were not from low-income groups and had no previous experience of the welfare system. Many were working full-time and in professional or otherwise well-paid occupations, yet were experiencing mental or physical ill-health during lockdown because of the condition of their home. In this respect the pandemic has accelerated the effects of the housing crisis and its impact on a wider range of individuals, highlighting the need for concentrated initiatives to tackle the root causes of the crisis that can materialise as people living in non-decent, poor housing conditions.

 

At the launch of the report in October, we called for urgent action this winter to mitigate the dire impacts of poor housing, insecurity of tenure, precarious employment and retracting state support. We disseminated our research widely, and we lobbied for change at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Housing in the North. We called for expanded support for low-income homeowners through allowing greater access to schemes that improve properties such as the Green Homes Grant. However, the majority of respondents we interviewed were private renters, and upon the announcement of a second lockdown in England at the end of November, we reflected on the situations they would face after being instructed to stay at home in cold, dark and damp conditions.

 

The number of privately rented homes has doubled in the last decade, with the private rented sector now accommodating around 4.5 million households. This figure is likely to increase as fewer people are able to purchase a property and social housing remains stagnant. To decrease dependence on private rented housing need in the longer-term, it is considered necessary to build more social homes, ensure rent prices are lower and house prices are affordable. In the shorter term, whilst recent government approaches to tackling poor conditions for renters have focussed on the activities of ‘rogue landlords’, our research brings to light how the sector now provides long-term but largely unsuitable housing. The misery of lockdown for the renters we interviewed reaffirmed calls for greater regulation of privately rented housing, perhaps in the style of the socially-rented sector’s Decent Homes Standard. In the social rented sector, the Standard aims to provide for tenants a minimum baseline of quality based on health and safety ratings, a reasonable state of repairs, modern facilities and services and sufficient levels of thermal comfort. The Standard also puts responsibility on local authorities and housing associations to cooperate and work with tenants to address poor housing conditions. A comparable standard for private renters might begin to stem the tide against insecure and non-decent housing situations, ensure housing provides a safe, secure and emotionally-nourishing settings that might otherwise be thought as ‘home’.

 

 

 

By the Manchester Local Plan Coalition

 

Please read the letter below and this article in the Manchester Meteor. If you are as concerned as we are, please use this model letter to email your MP.

This letter was sent to Andy Burnham and the leaders of the ten Greater Manchester Local Authorities on 7th January, 2021: 

 

As a coalition of community groups and membership organisations concerned about democracy, the environment and the public realm, we have been alarmed by recent Government announcements on the English Planning System.

We believe the proposed measures amount to an emergency for communities and local authorities across England.

The controversial ‘Planning for the Future’ White Paper is receiving ongoing scrutiny and challenge, with much detail still to be worked out and its proposed reforms at least three years off.

It is the introduction via Statutory Instruments of separate fast-track changes which has prompted us to write to you urgently to request that you intervene on behalf of Greater Manchester’s local authorities and constituencies.

The Government is committed to building 300,000 new homes a year to tackle the housing crisis. However, telling developers to “get on with it - do what you like”, which is what the new measures amount to, will create far more problems than it solves. 

The changes announced by Robert Jenrick on 3rd December, which we outline below, cannot be allowed to enter statute when so many questions remain:

• How can councils deliver viable urban centres if left with such modest control over development management?
• How can the Government justify not imposing affordable housing /Section 106 obligations on PDR schemes?
• Aside from increasing use of Article 4 directions, how could authorities prevent the conversion of buildings in plainly unsustainable locations?
• How could zones for growth or renewal (proposed in the White Paper) actually function if you can move seamlessly between the many Class E uses, then into residential?
• What about the impact of losing retail and other amenities vital for local communities, such as nurseries?
• How can we ensure that new homes are well-designed, energy efficient and meet other quality, design and access standards, if this is not covered by prior approval consents? 
• How does all of this fit with the Secretary of State’s recent edicts about the need for the right homes in the right locations, a fast-track for beauty and a focus on design and local vernacular?
• What about the statutory development plan? Statutory duties like section 38(6) or the Listed Buildings Act? Other material considerations?
• How would the prior approval process cope with the infinite permutations of buildings? It is simply not possible to write into legislation the necessary variety of detail and conditionality that is currently weighed up by planning committees.
• How would appeals be determined?

Context and summary of the proposed changes

In August 2020, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) massively increased ‘permitted development rights’ (PDR), allowing:

• shops, cafes, gyms and other high street buildings to be converted between uses without applying to do so.
• buildings such as blocks of flats, offices and homes to extend upwards by two stories to create new homes. 
• demolition of existing buildings to be replaced with new residential buildings, again without going through the planning process. 

The new rules were laid before Parliament on the last day of the parliamentary term, due to come into effect the day before Parliament returned.

Campaign group Rights: Community: Action sought a Judicial Review, claiming:

“a significant breach of the EU Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, a failure to comply with Public Sector Equality Duty and a disregard for matters raised by previous consultation and for matters that might have been raised by proper Parliamentary debate”.

On 17th November they heard they had lost the case (an appeal is pending).

On 3rd December, Robert Jenrick announced a further set of PDR which, if implemented, will ensure that town planning as we have known it will no longer apply to the vast majority of development that can take place in urban areas.

The proposed PDR apply to ALL buildings in Class E, a new ‘commercial, business and service’ use class covering shops, restaurants, offices, gyms, banks, GP practices, nurseries, light industry and other business and leisure premises.

It will allow movement between these uses, or conversion into housing, without planning permission.

As you will be aware, the conversion of offices to residential units has been in effect since 2013. While it has significantly boosted net additional dwellings in England, which is much needed, the Government’s own quality standard review, published in July, showed many problems with PDR housing. These included shoddy conversions, siting of homes away from transport links and services, and the loss of tens of thousands of affordable homes due to Section 106 exemptions.

A RICS report has estimated that, while being highly profitable for landowners and developers, between 2013 and 2017 local planning authorities across England missed out on financial contributions of up to £48m as a result of this policy.

A positive response to the report is that new homes delivered through PDR will henceforth need to meet minimum national space standards and provide “adequate natural light” (not the same as a right to a window).

It was not anticipated that it would be followed by a right to convert practically any building of any size to residential without planning permission.

The homes will instead be consented through a ‘prior approval’ process whereby councils would be unable to refuse a development that did not relate to this short list of considerations: flooding, site transport, contamination, adequate natural light, fire safety, noise from existing commercial activity, and other impacts on the intended occupiers of living in an area considered important for heavy industry or waste management.

Existing rules on climate change would not apply. Design standards would not apply, not even in conservation areas. There would be no restrictions on size; no requirement for affordable homes.

In a recent survey, 78% of local councillors in England said the zoning system proposed in the Planning White Paper is undemocratic. But at least councillors would get a say on the zones. Via the Class E PDR regime, local authorities will lose all meaningful control over place-making. 

An application fee of £96 per dwelling is proposed, up to a maximum of £4,800 for 50 homes. This low fee, along with the limited prior approval matters and no reference to s106 or Community Infrastructure Levy contributions, appears to incentivise very large office and retail sites to make lots of exploratory applications without a firm intention to deliver. This could make it hard for councils to understand what is in the housing delivery pipeline.

No planning application process means no funds for public services. While MHCLG suggests local authorities “would benefit from reduced volume of planning applications, offset by a reduction in fees”, this assumes that all of the sites would have come forward anyway, rather than being encouraged by this new regime.

The new rules could increase, rather than decrease, land banking.

According to planning solicitor Nicola Gooch, the impact of Covid-19 on the economy will create:

“a real temptation for commercial landlords to flip vacant units to residential before looking at other, more traditional, commercial uses for them. Unless Councils are very quick off the mark with their Article 4 Directions, the future of many high streets may very quickly become predominantly residential”.

The government has justified these proposals at least partly on the basis that high streets and town centres need flexibility to enable them to regenerate and thrive. But how is that achieved by denying local people any say on the shape and feel of their communities and civic centres, and removing councils’ ability to secure balanced and imaginative new uses for civic space?      

Alongside the new PDR rules, MHCLG is proposing to shorten public consultation to 14 days for any prison, hospital, university campus or other public infrastructure that wants to expand. Yet local communities should have a role in shaping these anchor institutions.

The consultation

We are a diverse collection of local groups and organisations, collectively focussed on housing and homelessness, the crisis of affordability, the environment and climate change, neighbourhood action and local democracy. We want our GM authorities to have the tools, powers and flexibilities necessary to plan for and deliver the quality housing - especially affordable housing - that our communities are crying out for.

We want Greater Manchester to meet its climate targets; for our towns and boroughs to be in control of their own, complementary, economic strategies. And we don’t want to see our services and local infrastructure depleted further by an effective resource transfer to private developers.

The fact that Rights: Community: Action lost their court case is an alarm call. It was determined that the Secretary of State had no obligation to gain consent for the sweeping changes announced in August.

The Government is consulting on the latest measures, via an online survey that is open until 28th January, after which they will publish a response. Whatever the feedback, there is no guarantee that it will affect their plans.

We therefore request that Greater Manchester’s leaders and public bodies use your combined weight and media access to make known your views not just through the online consultation but loudly and publicly, to galvanise other regions to do the same.

The consultation seeks to understand the potential impacts of these measures on business, local planning authorities and communities. It invites comment on the proposed prior approval matters and whether there should be additional matters. With a nod to the Public Sector Equality Duty, it also invites views on any impacts arising from these measures on those with a protected characteristic.

We hope you agree with us that the very premise of this consultation is wrong, given the risk to housing standards, local democracy, place-making and climate strategy. The towns and cities of Greater Manchester need the right housing, in the right places - affordable and served by the necessary community infrastructure and employment opportunities.

This is not the way to Build Back Better, and we entreat you to help prevent this fast track, by-the-back-door attempt to fulfil the Prime Minister’s ambition to “tear down” the English planning system.

Manchester Local Plan Coalition (including GMHA, The Meteor, Friends of the Earth, Steady State Manchester and Climate Emergency Manchester)

and over 50 other signatories.