Higher rent payments would be offset be lower energy bills
Charging higher rents for energy efficient properties could be a mechanism for channeling more money into councils and housing associations, the Housing Forum’s director of policy has said.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual Housing Brighton conference this morning, Anna Clarke said a more expensive tenure could be balanced by lower energy bills.
She said: “We’ve pushed at the Housing Forum for rents to be linked to energy efficiency, or potentially higher for homes with solar panels. These are things that are saving the tenant money but cost more to build or to retrofit.
“It’ll be a way of leveraging private finance to cover those [costs], which will be offset by the lower bills that the tenant would be getting. You’re not asking people to pay more in total, but you’re getting a bit of extra money.”
Clarke was part of a panel discussion about how the government can deliver its target of 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, where speakers also emphasised the role of local authorities and social landlords in supporting the objective.
Clarke described the building safety gateway process as an “almighty bottleneck” in housing delivery, causing “huge financial problem”, delays and frustration stemming from unclear government guidance in advance of an application.
However, she also affirmed that there is a “government that is listening”.
She said: “Everybody I talk to across the sector tells me that they will be invited to meetings. They want to talk to us, they’re listening to us and they’re doing the things we ask for.”
She referenced the successful cross-sector lobbying that resulted in the government confirming an additional £2bn for the Affordable Homes Programme at the end of last month.
Meanwhile during the same session, Gavin Smart, chief executive of the CIH, said he agreed with Labour’s 1.5 million homes target.
He said: “We probably need to go even further, but it really is better to aim for what is really needed, and perhaps risk failing to hit it, than setting a target that you know you can meet so that you succeed on paper but fail in the real world.”
However, he added that the government needs to “take an even more active role in housing delivery, including reforming land markets, strengthening local authority capacity and scaling up on the social and affordable side.”
The Housing Forum is a membership body of over 120 organisations across the public and private sectors.
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