More than a tenth of all homes for rent in Greater London fail to meet the national minimum Decent Homes Standard, and roughly half of those are in a state of disrepair that poses a serious risk to the health and safety of those living in them, according to a new report by the Fabian Society.
Entitled Home Comforts, the report draws on English Housing Survey data, combined with focus group and opinion poll findings and interviews with experts to produce recommendations for eradicating poor-quality rented properties across England as a whole and a business case for implementing them.
London was found to have smaller proportions of both private rented sector (PRS) and social housing stocks that fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard, which applies specifically to the condition of social homes, than the country in general, with 12 per cent of its PRS homes and 11 per cent of its social rented homes falling short.
Only in the North East region is the overall percentage slightly lower, while in the East Midlands it is more than twice as high. Even so, the absolute number of rented homes of all kinds in the capital not up to scratch is likely to exceed 200,000, as there are just over one million PRS dwellings in Greater London (page 10) and around 800,000 social rented households (page 4).
The percentages of non-decent rented homes in London varied significantly from borough to borough as shown by government modelling, with Kensington & Chelsea having the highest proportions of both PRS (27.7 per cent) and their own local authority homes (16.6 per cent) not meeting the Decent Homes Standard, meaning that close to one quarter (23.5 per cent) of all rented homes in the borough aren’t rated decent.
Neighbouring Westminster was in second place by both measures (15.2 per cent of its social homes below Decent Homes Standard and 25.3 per cent of its PRS homes), and Waltham Forest third by both measures (14.7 per cent and 23.9 per cent respectively).
Assessed by the same method, Tower Hamlets had the lowest percentages of both PRS homes (13.3 per cent) and social rented homes (7.8 per cent) that fell short of the Decent Homes Standard, followed by Havering (16.5 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively).
The Home Comfort report lists lessons that the Labour government elected last July can learn from the Decent Homes Programme of its predecessor, introduced in 2001, and 16 recommendations for addressing continuing problems with rented properties in England.
The first is that the government should introduce a new “good home standard” applicable to both social rented and private rented housing, pointing out that neither the Decent Homes Standard nor the government’s housing health and safety rating system guidance for landlords and property-related professionals have been updated since 2006. The goal would be would be to raise standards over a ten-year period, with the elimination of serious health and safety risks – known as category one hazards – completed by 2030.
The second recommendation is that grants for adapting homes to the needs of disabled people be increased and the system for securing them simplified, and the third calls for the government’s proposed new digital PRS sector database is “an effective national register of PRS landlords, holiday lets, letting agents and managing agents” with data about the condition and rent levels of properties among that made publicly available.
Other recommendations include funding for poor-quality PRS homes to be converted into social rent homes, preventing the sale of sub-standard PRS properties by one landlord to another and establishing a “long-term social housing quality fund” for the improvement of existing stock. All local authorities should be empowered to set up licensing schemes to help push up standards and reduce antisocial behaviour by tenants.
The Fabian Society functions primarily as a think tank and is a long-standing affiliate of the Labour Party. The Home Comforts report was funded by the Northern Housing Consortium, Independent Age, The Guinness Partnership and the Home Group. Read the Home Comforts report in full here.
OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support the website and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things that other people won’t. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky.