Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 83
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
One innovative, community-led form of specialist housing is co-housing, “where citizens come together to design, develop and collectively manage housing to meet their needs.” 151 In co-housing residences, each resident has their own private home whilst sharing a range of communal facilities including a common house for eating and activities, gardens, small-scale energy generation and car-pools. The UK Co-housing Network told us: “Co-housing classically, but not exclusively, is an attractive option for an ageing population as they seek to live independently in a mutually supportive smaller home, within a sociable community.” Intergenerational cohousing, where older and younger people live alongside each other, has been “shown to be a way where those with equity may leverage up those starting out to share life, skills and resources.” 152 Box 4: New Ground co-housing community, High Barnet The UK’s first senior cohousing community, New Ground in High Barnet, opened in 2016 with 26 women members. Two thirds of the group are aged over 70 and a third are over 80. Almost all of the women previously lived alone. The group live in a new, purpose-built block of flats with gardens. Occupants live in their own accommodation but share common areas including a common room, guest room, laundry and gardens. 17 flats are owner-occupied; 8 are for social renters on assured tenancies. In the Netherlands, with a population of around 17 million, there are at least 300 older people’s co-housing communities. Source: Maria Brenton, UK Cohousing Senior Cohousing Ambassador, Maria’s blog: https://www.owch.org.uk/news-articles/2021/9/30/marias-blog [accessed 22 December 2021] Under-occupation of housing
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".