|
Welcome to our latest edition of Nouse News, the local strategic housing e-newsletter facilitated by Nottingham City Council's Housing Strategy team.?
If you're a local organisation with an article you'd like us to include in our autumn edition please email?[email protected]?
The Renters Reform Bill?was announced on Thursday 16 June, detailing big changes for UK landlords and tenants.
The bill is part of the government?s latest white paper: A Fairer Private Rented Sector that?includes a 12-point plan of action including:
- Applying the Decent Homes Standard requirement to PRS homes
- Abolition of Section 21 eviction notices
- Restricting the number of times landlords can raise rents to no more than yearly
- Measures to make it easier for tenants to have pets
The White Paper includes a case study of Nottingham?s Selective Licensing scheme, looking at the progress made to drive up property conditions.
London estate agent Ellis & Co have produced a helpful online document explaining the white paper and bill and the potential impacts for landlords, available here
|
There?s still time to have your say on Nottingham City Council?s proposals for a new selective licensing scheme.
The scheme is proposed to run immediately after the current scheme ends, and like the first aims to improve standards in the private rented sector. The council believes a new scheme should be considered based on:
- Significant or persistent problems caused by anti-social behaviour
- Poor property conditions
- High levels of deprivation
- High levels of crime
The council has arranged a number of consultation events where you can find out more and ask questions. Four remain including two online sessions, details here
The online consultation is open until 22nd August here
Government plans to extend the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme to tenants of housing associations (also known as registered providers) were confirmed in June. The National Housing Federation is currently working with government to establish how this will work in practice with more detailed information expected in autumn.
An earlier Midlands pilot of the extended scheme resulted in 87 sales of housing association homes in Nottingham, depleting stock by 1.3%.? In 2021/22 Nottingham City Council received 621 RTB applications and completed 234 sales of its own properties.???
Read the government's new story?here
Following extensive consultation, student housing organisation Unipol formally launched its new National Code for Non-educational Establishments?in?March.
From the consultations that were undertaken whilst agreeing the final version of the revised Code, some significant changes were made including:
- National Code members must price rooms for students with mobility and physical impairments at the lowest room rate available within their own portfolio for that local authority area.
- If a building covered by the National Code is not ready to move into as agreed, students could be entitled to hundreds of pounds in compensation.
- If a member of the National Code has serious concerns about a student?s welfare, they need to work with the university to help the student get the support they need.
For more information, please visit www.nationalcode.org
|
After 33 years working in a variety of City Council housing roles, Graham de Max, Housing Strategy Manager, retired in May. A huge number of colleagues past and present joined Graham to mark to occasion showing just how much Our Graham is thought of and will be missed!? Here?s Graham on his very last day in the office with his gifts from grateful colleagues.
Picking up where Graham left off, Dan Lucas will be re-joining the team after many years working at Nottingham City Homes. Congratulations Dan!
|
The first high level local datasets from the Census 2021 were released on 28th June. The table below shows how Nottingham?s overall population and number of households have changed since 2011.
Nottingham?s average household size increased to 2.59 from 2.42 in 2011.? Previous Office for National Statistics projections suggested 2021 would see a peak for household size in Nottingham before falling to 2.47 over the next 20 years.? Nottingham had the second largest average household size of the core cities, and also larger than the average in adjoining districts.
Further datasets will be released from autumn.
The housing association has announced its Chief Financial Officer Sarah Jones will take over as new Chief Executive from 1 August 2022.?
Sarah's appointment follows Jane Ashcroft?s decision to step down from the role at England?s largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care for older people. Read more from Sarah and Jane here
|
Nottingham City Homes and construction partners, Lovell Homes started building homes on site of the former Padstow School playing field in June.?
The 129 energy efficient new council homes, consisting of?one, two and three bed properties, including houses, flats and wheelchair accessible bungalows, will go to Nottingham households on the housing register at affordable rents.? More here
Nottingham Community Housing Association are proud to have their work on equality, diversity and inclusion recognised by The Housing Diversity Network.? The independent body supports organisations to address inequality and promote equality, diversity and opportunity for all and the Diversity Network Accreditation is the industry standard in social housing.
NCHA?s ?success demonstrates they have effective leadership and processes in place. More here
|
Places for People have been named one of the UK?s Best Workplaces by Great Place to Work. ?The certification body spotlights organisations dedicated to supporting colleague wellbeing.? To determine the list, the Great Place to Work team considered thousands of colleague surveys to understand the experience of wellbeing within organisations.
The registered provider placed 32 in the ?Super Large? (over 1,000 colleagues) category. Read more here
Work has started to turn 77 council homes into super green and energy efficient properties.? The 28 bungalows and 49 houses will benefit from these works to reduce domestic energy costs for residents.
The works form the latest Deep Retrofit Energy Model (DREeM) project are modelled on the pioneering Energiesprong scheme, turning hard-to-heat council houses into ultra-low energy homes.
Nottingham City Homes and partners Melius Homes will be carrying out the work on behalf of the council utilising funding from the ?European Regional Development Fund. More here
Funding from the government?s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been used by the Local Authority Delivery scheme to install solar panels to 134 privately owned homes across the city.
The scheme supports Nottingham?s ambition to be the first carbon neutral city in the UK by 2028 and will save each household approximately ?290 per year on their energy bills. Read the full press release here
The third phase of the Local Authority Delivery scheme is accepting eligible applicants from identified target areas, with installations expected to take place from Autumn 2022. Further details here
|
An event at the University of Nottingham's Trent Building today saw the launch of a research project funded by the British Academy.
The 10-month collaborative?project between Pathway Housing Solutions and the University of Nottingham will look at the links between ethnicity, housing disadvantage and homelessness within a local context.
The well-attended launch event, also joined by stakeholders online, was introduced by Nottingham City Council's new portfoilio holder for Housing & Human Resources Councillor Toby Neal, pictured here with Dr Nick Clare of the University of Nottingham and Henri Baptiste from Pathway Housing Solutions.
|
A city housing scheme that works to reduce hospital admissions has helped residents avoid 27,000 extra bed days in hospital or social care. ?
The Housing to Health project works within local hospitals to support patients whose discharge is being delayed due to housing issues, speeding up the re-housing process to homes where they can live independently and preventing homelessness.
The project is run between Nottingham City Homes, Nottingham City Council, local NHS hospitals and the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning group.? Read more here
Hometrack has now published ten consecutive quarterly rental market reports with four of these showing that Nottingham experienced the highest annual growth of all English cities.? The latest report, looking at Q1 2022, placed Nottingham only behind Manchester whose rents grew by a staggering 14.3%
The average monthly rental price in Nottingham was ?797, an annual increase of 13%
Excluding London UK city rents grew by an average 9.1% evidencing another uplift nationally. This compares with a CPIH inflation rise of 7.9% in May 2022, the time at which the rental data was published.
|
Latest UK House Price Growth Index data shows the average home in Nottingham cost just under ?180k in April, rising 10.3% Although high, the level of growth was actually lower than for England (11.9%) and the East Midlands (12.4%). As was the case for rental prices, these increases outstrip the rate of CPIH inflation.
Price growth for flats in Nottingham was low at 5.1% while the property type with the highest growth was detached ? up 13.1%
|
 Your round-up of notable events, consultations and policy changes for the coming weeks:
August
10? Women In Construction taster day, Nottingham City Homes
22? Selective Licensing in Nottingham consultation closes
September
13? Women In Construction taster day, Nottingham City Homes
14? Have Your Say on Housing: event focussing upon housing in Nottingham and how it serves ethnic minority communities, Nottingham City Council Further details TBA
20? The Nottingham Residential Landlord Clinic, EMPO Landlords
25? Low carbon tour of energy efficient houses in The Meadows, Green Meadows
Got a diary date between November and January you'd like us to include in our next edition? Let us know at [email protected] ?
|
