Briefings and responses

Homelessness is a tragedy for all those it affects, and is one of the most visible signs of the nation’s housing crisis. It is damaging for individuals, families and communities, and limits peoples’ ability to play a full and active role in society and the economy.

Councils approve nine in ten planning applications and last year worked with developers to permission over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high.

The private rented sector has more than doubled in size since 2002. To accompany the rise in the number of private renters, councils have stepped up their engagement with landlords.

We welcome the steps that have been taken to date to address dangerous cladding and other fire safety issues, including the ban on combustible cladding. However, the Government needs to act with urgency to deliver protections for residents in dangerous buildings as quickly as possible.

The LGA believes the Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing (EEIS+) proposal could form the basis of a useful backup to the requirement for Responsible Persons to identify residents who are unable to self-evacuate and make every reasonable adjustment to ensure that they can do so, through the provision of a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) held a consultation on social housing rents between 31 August and 12 October 2022. The consultation sought views on the introduction of a rent ceiling from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Our response to the consultation questions can be found below.

We broadly support measures that streamline and modernise the CPO process including flexibility surrounding the three-year time-limit in which a CPO can be used.

We welcome the introduction of a legally-binding Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and we would support the removal of the term ‘old’ in the DHS, so only the condition is relevant.

Proposals for reform of the building safety regulatory system - July 2019. The fire at Grenfell Tower exposed systemic failures in the building regulation system. It is right that we seek to correct these failures, to prevent a fire like the one at Grenfell tower from ever occurring again.

We believe it is important to retain an element of local flexibility within a stable long-term national framework of rent increases.