Camden Labour's New Housing Investment policy - no new ideas

While CamdenLabour has got some headlines for stopping the sale of void properties to fund Decent Homes, the report going to the new cabinet on 9th June shows that Labour councillors have actually not be able to add any new ideas to those already on the table, which are appropriately outlined by council officers. The options are:

"seek government funding"
"review the scope of the Decent Homes programme"
"additional borrowing"
"Create a Council owned community investment agency"
"Increase the funds generated through estate regeneration"

Taking those briefly in turn:

- seeking government funding was exactly what the last administration was doing.
- The report explains that reviewing the scope of the Decent Homes work could mean work on kitchens and bathrooms for tenants being cut back.
- Additional borrowing of £5m would be an additional massive burden on the HRA and hit tenants.
- A council-owned community investment agency is (clever) code for renting out council properties at market rents for 30 years to generate capital for housing investment.
- Increasing the funds generated through estate regeneration would be highly speculative as a source of funding. The last administration identified four estate areas but found it incredibly difficult to make progress to generate £100m net in value from regeneration. Increasing this sum further, by perhaps up to £100m, would inevitably mean a major increase in housing density on many estates, with less open space.

There are no easy solutions. Which is why the previous partnership administration said there are no easy solutions.

This report effectively stops the sales programme without coming near to identifying how the shortfall will be filled, so it must put Decent Homes at risk. All the report does is state that a future report on financing options under the five headings above will come forward, and note that there is no timing of that report.