The government's Social Housing Green Paper is expected to be
published in the Spring of 2018.
ARCH is preparing its response to the issues and we want your
views and comments to help inform our response.
In announcing the Social Housing Green Paper in a speech on 19
September 2017 the Secretary of State referred back to a time
when:
"Living in social housing carried no stigma, no shame, quite the
opposite, in fact. For many, it was seen the gold standard for
accommodation, not a final safety net for the desperate and
destitute but something you could genuinely aspire to, housing you
would actively choose to live in; and as a country we were all
rightly proud of it" and he said:
"We need to return to the time, not so very long ago, when
social housing was valued. It was treasured. Something we could all
be proud of whether we lived in it or not. I know that's exactly
what many of you in the sector have been trying to achieve for
many, many years. Well, I'm proud to stand here today and say that
you have a Secretary of State who's totally committed to the
cause."
"Social housing we can all be proud" of is an ambition ARCH is
proud to share and we want to work with this and any future
government to make it a reality.
ARCH Policy Adviser Matthew Warburton has produced a paper which we have given the
working title "Social housing we can all be proud of" setting out
how we think this can be achieved.
The paper sets out a number of key points and recommendations
that we expect the Social Housing Green Paper to address,
identifying the need for social housing and what we would expect
the government to do in backing councils to build and investing in
council housing and ensure that tenants have a stronger voice.
The paper also sets out a need to review the Right to Buy to
that as a minimum we have workable arrangements to ensure one for
one replacement of homes sold.
The ARCH Tenant Group will be considering the paper at its next
meeting and will feed their comments into the ARCH Executive Board
at its meeting on 9 April.
The intention is to develop this paper into a position statement
which we intend to publish in advance of the Housing Green Paper to
influence the shape and direction of social housing policy and feed
into the government's Social Housing Green Paper when published and
the wide-ranging debate we expect will follow.
In order to finalise this paper we want to ensure that our
members have the opportunity to contribute to the debate and we are
looking for comments on the paper from tenants, elected members and
officers.
Please send in your views and comments on the attached paper to
ARCH Chief Executive John Bibby (john.bibby@arch-housing.org.uk
) to be received no later than 16 March 2018.
Read the paper "Social housing we can all be proud
of" and submit your views and comments.