Housing associations are a bit like Network Rail. They are what Tony Blair christened his ‘Third Way’ between capitalism and socialism, in the hope they would combine the best elements of both. Instead, they combine some of the worst: public sector lethargy and private sector greed.
According to a forthcoming investigation by Channel 4 News, 40 housing association executives are paid more than the Prime Minister for managing a pile of ex-council houses given to them on a plate and which were once managed by a clerk of works and a team of rent-collectors on no more than £30,000 a year.
David Cameron’s government is making life a little harder for these associations, and, not surprisingly, they don’t like it. They have not lost an opportunity since the election to complain that the proposed extension of right to buy — George Osborne’s scheme to push more people on to the property ladder — will deprive them of their assets and that welfare reform will undermine their income.
‘The election didn’t make any difference to the underlying fact that we hadn’t built enough new homes,’ says David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, the trade body for housing associations. ‘We had not focused sufficiently on regeneration; unless we start doing both of these things very quickly we will not be able to house our children.’
So why aren’t housing associations taking the initiative and building more homes? Many people have been quick to accuse private housebuilders of sitting on landbanks to cause house price inflation. Ed Miliband even threatened them with compulsory purchase if they failed to develop their land.
But private housebuilders are positively revving up their diggers compared with housing associations.
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