Housing and Regeneration Act 2008
The Act which was given Royal Assent last summer¹ aims to ensure that everyone has
access to affordable housing, in a location where they want to live and work, whilst
safeguarding higher housing standards for social housing tenants.
The new Act will:
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1. |
Establish the Homes and Communities Agency as the national housing and regeneration
agency for England, with an annual budget of more than £5billion. |
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2. |
Reform social housing regulation through the creation of the Tenant Services Authority
- a new watchdog for social tenants. |
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3. |
Make new housing greener by introducing a mandatory rating against a Code for Sustainable
Homes for new homes (although not all homes will be required to be assessed), helping
to tackle climate change. |
Homes and Communities Agency (HCA)
The HCA will join together English Partnerships, the investment
programme of the Housing Corporation, the Academy for Sustainable Communities, and
key housing and regeneration programmes currently delivered by Communities and Local
Government, in an attempt to bring together housing and regeneration into one national
agency in order to deliver new and sustainable social and affordable housing.
The HCA will also have a key role to play in regenerating communities. It will base
its approach on the Government’s regeneration framework – Transforming Places; Changing
Lives. Working with local partners it will ensure that decisions are made locally,
and cater to the communities needs, for example, making homes of a higher standard
of design, and taking into consideration people’s access to jobs.
The HCA will also provide advice and support for innovative approaches to delivery
such as through Local Housing Companies or Community Land Trusts, helping to support
joint working with private sector partners.
Tenant Services Authority (TSA)
The TSA will regulate social housing landlords, setting
higher standards across housing association and eventually local authority social
homes. It will also empower tenants by listening to their concerns and acting to
ensure they are getting a good service and a fair deal. The Authority will also
have the power to cut the red tape for high performing registered social landlords.
A “National Conversation” (a nationwide consultation on what services social tenants
need, and what standards they should expect) was commenced by the TSA in mid-January
2009.
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¹ 23 July 2008
The Act will allow rewriting of the rules on financing new council housing, helping
councils to build new value for money social housing, and to keep full rents from
new council houses and use any surpluses to help pay for new social homes. A consultation
paper “Changes to the revenue and capital rules for new Council housing - consultation
on excluding new Council housing from Housing Reform Account Subsidy and Pooling”
has been published by CLG. Responses to the consultation must be submitted by 17
April 2009.
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For More Information Contact:
Pav Jawanda
TPP Law Limited
53 Great Suffolk Street
London SE1 ODB
t 020 7620 0888
f 020 7620 0778
e info@tpplaw.co.uk
Email:Pav
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