Features

Developing affordable homes

Barratt is one of Britain’s best-known housebuilders having sold over 300,000 new homes around the country but what many people don’t know is that the developer also provides affordable housing

Beaumont Leys, a deprived area in Leicester, has suffered a poor image in the past, but the area has witnessed a significant transformation in its fortunes over the last 10 years – and those efforts have far from ended

They think it’s all over...

Set against the backdrop of the World Cup 2010 and the much-anticipated emergency Budget, this year’s Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference and exhibition in Harrogate was always going to be eventful

AT HOME WITH... Grant Shapps MP

Grant Shapps has scrapped the TSA, but before his keynote speech to delegates in Harrogate, the minister briefed the housing press on his decision. Mark Cantrell went along to find out why he thinks this is good for tenants – and for local democracy

Is society set to march back to Dickens?

Plans to cap and cut Housing Benefit have sent more than just the housing sector reeling. The implications of what the NHF has already called “an onslaught on the vulnerable” are still sinking in, but it is feared the measures will ‘ghettoise’ deprivation and harden social inequalities. Mark Cantrell reports

Considering the consequences

The CIH released a briefing note examining the potential impact of the Government’s changes to Housing Benefit and Local Housing Allowance (LHA). The document gives a detailed overview of what housing providers and local authorities with a strategic housing role may have to face in the coming months and years as the reforms bite.

A paradigm shift in social housing

By Peter Graddon, director, Omfax Systems

Over the past decade there has been a major change in the structure and management of social housing. Housing Associations have led the way in the new approach and many local authorities have opted to migrate their homes to become associations or to create Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) to allow them to change and improve the way they provide social housing.

Getting Training Online

The Getting Training Online website at www.gettingtrainingonline.co.uk has two functions
1. Promote online training
2. Provide online training

Magna Housing Association: Utilising project planner for voids to reduce average re-let times by 5 days

Magna Housing Association, which provides and manages over 6,000 quality affordable homes, was established in 1993 when West Dorset District Council transferred its housing stock. It works primarily in Dorset, Devon, South Gloucestershire and Somerset and is committed to providing affordable housing in areas where it is needed most.

New world for housing associations

Housing associations have come far in the world of development and mhs homes in Chatham, Kent, is one of those leading the way with the provision of quality affordable homes