Southwark Council (opens in a new window) have commissioned a report on England's council housing (opens in a new window). The report aims to help the new government ensure that councils can provide more, and better, publicly owned housing.

The report:

• offers five solutions and more than 20 recommendations, from over 100 council landlords
• is signed by more than 100 councils, responsible for 1.2 million homes.

The context

England’s council housing system is broken and its future is in danger. An unsustainable financial model and erratic national policy changes have squeezed budgets and sent costs soaring.

Unless something is done soon, most council landlords will struggle to:

• maintain their existing homes adequately
• meet the new demands to improve them
• build new homes for social rent.

Across the country development projects are being cancelled and delayed. This has huge implications for the local construction sector, jobs and housing market.

The reality is that some councils will have no option but to sell more of their existing stock to finance investment in an ever-shrinking portfolio of council homes.

The recommendations

Southwark Council's recommendations include urgent action to:

• restore lost income
• unlock local authority capacity

The five solutions set out detailed and practical recommendations to the new government:

1. A new fair and sustainable Housing Revenue Account (HRA) model, including an urgent £644 million one-off rescue injection, and long-term, guaranteed rent and debt agreements.
2. Reforms to unsustainable Right to Buy policies.
3. Removing red tape on existing funding.
4. A new, long-term Green & Decent Homes Programme.
5. Urgent action to restart stalled building projects, avoiding the loss of construction sector capacity and a market downturn.