Peer Pressure by Post: Build Social Housing

Ask the Lords to support our amendments

We want to change the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill so councils and developers build more social homes. To do that, we need you – again! 
 
Last month, over 4,000 Shelter supporters emailed Lords and asked them to put social housing at the heart of this Bill. It worked. A third of peers who spoke in the debate mentioned the need for more social housing. This wouldn’t have happened without Shelter supporter like you contacting them.

Now we need Lords to support our amendments. 

The bill is at Committee Stage (when they can debate and change the bill). But, 4,000 of you have already, quite successfully, emailed them. So, what next? We thought you could help us send them a few postcards! 

Put your details in and we’ll pick you a random peer pen pal and send your postcard straight to their pigeonhole. 
 
Why not add a message?: Do you live in social housing? Or do you work in a profession that is impacted by not having enough social housing? We have space for a short personal message on why social housing is so important. We need more social housing urgently - but last year we lost 14,000 social homes. Help us amend this bill and get social housing built again.

• Find out what amendments we want and how they would build more social housing:

  1. scrapping ‘hope value’ to make land affordable for councils to build social housing:

  We need to make land cheaper so councils can build social homes. Hope Value is an outdated, bizarre rule which makes social housing difficult for councils to build because it inflates the cost of land. If you need a full reminder, please watch our video explainer below.

  This change would also make brownfield, urban land more likely to be used to build the homes communities need. Our amendment would scrap hope value for projects that build social housing.

  2. making every development include social housing:

  Section 106 is the current method used by councils to make developers build affordable housing and do their fair share to help local communities. The Levelling Up Bill wants to scrap this method and proposes a new ‘Infrastructure Levy.’ We believe this new ‘Levy’ must focus on making sure more social homes are delivered than the current system. However, in its current form, the Levy could create a loophole so social homes aren’t built as part of every housing development. Our amendment would close that loop hole.

  3. building social, not ‘affordable’ housing:

  Not all types of ‘affordable’ housing are affordable to those on lower wages. We believe this new ‘Infrastructure Levy’ is an opportunity to make it clear that the only type of housing that is truly affordable is social housing. Social rents are significantly lower than private rents. This is because they're the only rents linked to local people's income, rather than private market rates. Our amendment would specify social housing should be built rather than just ‘affordable’ housing, which isn’t tied to local income. Our amendment would specify social housing should be built rather than just ‘affordable’ housing.

  Watch our 'hope value' explainer:

Photo: ©Tim Crocker 2022