By Vicky Spratt

After a spate of police raids due to drugs and anti-social behaviour, it seemed one suburb of Grimsby was doomed. A community group turned socially conscious ethical landlord has rejuvenated the area and made it into a community once again.

East Marsh is a suburb of Grimsby in north east Lincolnshire which has often made headlines for the wrong reasons. In 2017, there were police raids due to drugs and anti-social behaviour. Then, in 2019, flashing blue lights of police vans lit up Oxford Street, Rutland Street and Stanley Street as officers tried to contain unrest which resulted in confrontations between locals and police.

It was these problems which prompted local man, 62-year-old Billy Dasein – who grew up in East Marsh and still lives there today – to take action.

“A community meeting was held,” he explains “and I wasn’t going to go but then my neighbour said, ‘our mums would have gone’ so I did, and that’s when I found myself speaking up.” It cemented his decision to continue the work of the community group he co-founded in 2017 – East Marsh United.

The name was deliberately chosen because it sounds like a local football team and is a world away from the “levelling up” jargon often used in political discourse. It began as a weekly meeting of local people who took on social problems such as litter and fly tipping.

Five years on, they have become a socially conscious ethical landlord. The group has begun to raise investment to buy up dilapidated homes in the area, renovate them and rent them out to people at an affordable rate which is tied to the Local Housing Allowance (the mechanism through which housing benefit is calculated). So far, they have three properties and are hoping to expand imminently.

Poor housing is rife in East Marsh and in this part of England overall; there are more than 50,000 households living in energy inefficient homes in north east Lincolnshire which means not only that poor insulation is causing mould and damp but that energy bills are high.

Walking around Rutland Street with Pete Rowley – who runs the ethical building firm, East Marsh Construction, which works closely with East Marsh United aims to employ local people on fair wages to work on homes which need doing up – it is easy to spot the homes which have been renovated.

Peter Rowley, East Marsh Construction

 

“We put a new roof on that one,” Mr Rowley points to a terraced house. “When we were brought in, it was owned by a private landlord and there were six children living there. There was damp everywhere, running down the walls.”

“We’ve been deliberately focusing on the very worst homes, some of which have been boarded up for eight or nine years,” Mr Rowley adds as we walk around. “A big problem here is that landlords from out of town have bought up ‘cheap’ properties as investments which, sometimes, they’ve never seen and they don’t care about the condition of them as long as they get their rent.”

 

The local Reverend Kay Jones, who is also involved with East Marsh United, confirms the scale of the problem. She said: “I’ve been to one house where the floorboards were rotten and you had to jump over a hole to get in. These people have no choice, they take that house or they’re homeless.”

“East Marsh United,” Revd Jones adds, “is a response to a community that has never had a voice for itself.”

It wasn’t always like this. Grimsby itself, including the area of East Marsh, was once a thriving community. Mr Rowley is something of a historian in his spare time and explains that the terraced homes here are built on top of marshland which was drained to build homes for rail workers in the 1800s. After that, they were home to the families of deep sea trawler workers when Grimsby was one of the biggest fishing docks in the world.

“There was work,” Mr Dasein says of his community’s past. “It wasn’t well-paid and I suppose you’d call it ‘zero hours’ today but you could walk out of one job and into another easily. There were opportunities here.”

Today, though, according to the local council’s Director of Public Health’s annual report, East Marsh is in the top 1 per cent of most deprived wards in England. And, earlier this year, there were three people chasing every job vacancy.

The contemporary challenges faced by the people of Grimsby – caused by the decline of the town’s fishing industry following the 70s Cod Wars and a lack of investment for essential infrastructure such as roads – are often highlighted by politicians. In the last year former Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow Levelling Up secretary Lisa Nandy have all paid flying visits – but the need for decent housing is rarely mentioned.

The group’s focus on homes, then, is no accident. Mr Dasein, Mr Rowley, Revd Jones and their colleague local architect 59-year-old Mark Hodson, are all sceptical about the government’s “Levelling Up” agenda.

Mark Hodson, Local Architect

 

“There’s a lot of jargon that gets used after people come to East Marsh,” Mr Hodson, who was born on the East Marsh Estate and grew up locally, says, “but safe housing and finding somewhere decent to live needs to be a key aspect of any “levelling up” agenda.”

“It was almost inevitable that something like the riots in 2017 happened,” Mr Hodson says when we meet at the Shalom Community Centre with Mr Rowley. “We needed an organisation like East Marsh United to take back some form of control. We needed to directly respond to absent landlords who don’t care about their properties or the tenants in them.”

Mr Dasein agrees. “I joke that people talk about the community at East Marsh as though we’re from another planet – East Martians,” he jokes. “But people here need the same basic things as people everywhere.”

“I talk about the ‘broken window theory’ a lot,” adds Mr Dasein. The premise of this idea, which came to prominence in sociology in the 1980s, is simple: if left unattended, seemingly small issues like broken windows, litter or boarded up homes contribute to an overall sense of disorder and disenfranchisement in a community.

“If you don’t look after the smaller infractions on a street then it’s going to escalate to bigger things because it says, ‘nobody cares, there is nobody looking after our place’,” Mr Dasein explains. “It’s all about that little word that means so much – home.”

“We are not buying houses as an investment tool which is how they’ve been treated here and in other places unfortunately,” Mr Dasein continues. “We’re buying them to be homes for our people.”

Before I leave East Marsh, I bump into a young man – Terry – and his partner who are currently renting their home from East Marsh United.

He smiles enthusiastically when I ask him what living in one of their properties is like:

“They’re absolutely brilliant. If something needs to be done, they do it. They’re not one of these landlords who are afraid to spend money. They respect their tenants. They’re not jumping down your throat if you’re going to be a few days late on the rent. They work with you.”

As politicians in Westminster grapple with regional inequality, talk of “levelling up” is the latest in a long line of buzzwords from former Conservative chancellor George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse” to media commentators’ use of the “Left Behind” to describe people from places such as Grimsby who voted to leave the European Union. But East Marsh United wants to keep things simple.

East Marsh United’s vision is “a hundred houses for a hundred years”. This would create a sustainable revenue stream via rental income to keep the organisation going. As things stand, they have raised half of the £500,000 they need in a community share offer to fund another 10 homes. For every £100,000 invested, the chairman of Grimsby Town FC Jason Stockwood has pledged to invest £10,000.

They could well be onto something. Recent analysis by Pro Bono Economics has shown that the presence of community assets – that is, things which are for and owned by local people – might be a better predictor of life satisfaction in an area than its GDP or average household income.

There is a photograph that Mr Dasein likes to show when he is giving presentations about East Marsh United’s work: it shows him on the doorstep of his family home as a baby.

“There’s no litter in the photo and you can see that people have put plant pots outside their homes on the pavement, but this is something that you just could not do today because they’d be trashed,” Mr Dasein says. “People just want a nice house, nice neighbours and enough money to get by. That’s the point.”

Source: I news

Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) is increasingly recognised as a key solution to solving the UK’s housing crisis. Clive Feeney, LHC’s Interim Group Director, explains why.

In recent years MMC has carved a place in government policy, with Homes England placing it at the forefront of future housing development.
Dwellings built using these methods have great powers to expedite the levelling up agenda, thanks to speedy construction, use of low carbon building materials and methods, and the energy efficient, cheaper-to-heat homes produced.
The Homes England Affordable Homes programme mandates that 25% of new homes will be constructed using MMC, while the MMC taskforce, set up in early 2021, was allocated £10m funding to accelerate the adoption of offsite methods. This recognition of the value of MMC in homebuilding projects, coupled with investment to accelerate the adoption of offsite methods, is extremely welcome.

Fulfilling demand

Quality housing should be attainable for all UK citizens. But with more than one million people on social housing waiting lists, it is more important than ever to speed up the delivery of new homes to meet this demand.
A major benefit of using MMC is that not only is it possible to create better quality homes for people, but to build them more quickly than would be possible using traditional construction methods.
As is well-known, MMC-built homes are assembled in factory environments, allowing for more rigorous quality control. They are more energy efficient than traditional brick builds, with better insulation and designs created with sustainability and efficiency integral to them. Not only is this good for the environment and vital to helping us all reduce carbon emissions, but it is also significant in managing household utility spending – a crucial element in levelling up and in lessening the blow of rocketing energy bills.
One of the barriers to MMC being used in greater numbers has so far been the inability to scale up developments. But there may now be the catalyst, thanks to increasing routes to procure MMC through construction frameworks, together with July’s announcement from 2021-formed trade body, Make Modular, that it could reach 15,000 homes a year by 2024. This is in part due to a £500m investment in factory facilities since 2016 from its members, which include Ilke Homes, TopHat, Laing O’Rourke and Legal & General Modular Homes.

Reluctance to adopt

One of the key stumbling blocks is a hesitancy on the part of the social housing sector to adopt MMC until it becomes a tried and tested approach. Many registered providers would rather let the big commercial players make the mistakes from which smaller providers can learn, but can’t afford to make. This is an understandable but unfortunate impediment to progress which will no doubt be overcome in time as evidence of its benefits becomes clearer and it is recognised as a safe, progressive and cost-effective approach to housebuilding.
There is also an educational component to encouraging the adoption of MMC as standard. Requiring a significant shift in the way our homes are designed, procured and delivered, MMC is arguably the single biggest change to housing construction in many decades. The case is clear, but there’s much work to do to improve confidence in the sector and begin to see a wholehearted acceptance of MMC as the norm.

A brighter future

LHC has already supported the creation of more than 5,300 MMC-built social homes and with extra support provided by government, it is likely we will see more widespread uptake for the delivery of affordable homes built using MMC in the short term.
What will certainly help to drive the use of MMC is an aggregation of projects from housing providers across the country to allow greater standardisation in the supply chain. This means delivery can be quicker and cheaper, while facilitating the production of buildings of a higher quality.
At LHC we have already started on this journey and are connecting social housing providers across the UK and encouraging a constructive culture of collaboration. We are focused on identifying areas in which providers can aggregate and seek to approach their projects using MMC together, while sharing the burden of risk.
This approach has the potential to help scale the MMC market more quickly, enabling us to help UK residents reap the many benefits that a comfortable, safe home brings. It is also a vital ingredient in supporting the government’s levelling up agenda and addressing the inequality that has long surrounded our housing sector.

Article by Clive Feeney,

Interim Group Director at LHC Group

www.lhc.gov.uk

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Whilst the UK bakes in Mediterranean conditions New Zealand is in its mid-winter season with temperatures averaging 10c, this report indicates that the outlook for construction is also wintery in nature.

New home build inquiries have declined steeply since last year, and residential construction intentions have plummeted – but the industry expects it will avoid a global financial crisis-style crash this time around.

ANZ’s latest business outlook shows residential construction intentions have plummeted to a fresh low, down to a net -73.7% in July from -57.9% in June.

A reading of zero would mean the sector was evenly split on whether the outlook was positive or negative.

The bank’s chief economist, Sharon Zollner, said it was a “truly spectacular crash” in sentiment, and the outlook for house building had hit a brick wall.

New home consents are now dropping, and ANZ’s business outlook data suggests they may have a lot further to fall yet.

Consents are currently at historic highs, with 50,736 issued in the year ended June. But, on a monthly basis, the number of dwelling consents fell 2.3% in June, and it was the third monthly decline in a row.

With ongoing rises in costs, delays due to supply chain issues, and a string of building company liquidations, no-one expects the construction boom to continue, but there is much speculation around how bad the fall-out could be.

Recently, there have been reports of a significant drop-off in new build inquiries. Some estimates suggest an 80% to 90% decrease, but Master Builders chief executive David Kelly says hard data on this is difficult to come by, and no-one really knows how much inquiries have fallen by.

Group home builders, such as Signature Homes, Stonewood Homes and Jennian Homes, say demand is lower than it was previously, and inquiries and sales have slowed.

Building Industry Federation chief executive Julien Leys says the decline in new build inquiries is marked. Some group home builders, which do 50 to 100 home developments, have seen orders drop off the cliff, he says.

“One builder had 48 homes that people had signed up for, and those buyers have all now walked away from them. That is a huge change in order numbers, and it hits hard. The level of demand has fallen, and an industry slowdown is on the way.”

The record level of consents issued over the last year is unlikely to be matched by an equivalent number of new homes, as New Zealand has never built more than 40,000 in one year, he says.

“But the high consent levels do mean many builders have order books which are pretty full for the next 12 to 18 months. The question is what will happen when that pipeline of work has been worked through? What will be happening early next year?”

One handbrake for the industry is escalating costs. Leys doubts this will change any time soon, primarily because of freight costs. Trans-Tasman shipping costs were up by 40% in July, compared to the same time last year.

Another handbrake is the lack of skilled labour, with a new EBOSS survey showing 91% of builders think there are not enough staff to hire. This contributes to project delays, and cost increases.

These factors mean a downturn is on the way, and there will be more company insolvencies, Leys says. “But the sort of crash that occurred in the GFC is unlikely as the fundamentals behind that scenario are not there now.”

Home-buyers are wary about new builds due to the cost issues, but another reason for the slowdown is the tough lending environment created by the CCCFA rules and banks’ tighter criteria, Kelly says.

“It looks as though banks are starting to rethink that for some, and that will help. There are other counter-balancing factors at play too. One is the existing pipeline of work, which will take time to work though.”

Another is the Government’s commitment to supporting home building through the Affordable Housing Fund and Kāinga Ora, he says.

“The timing of the fund is important as it will help to derisk the situation for some development. There is also a big pipeline of work with Kāinga Ora. This won’t solve all the problems, but it will help, and it is something that was not there last time.”

There will be pain ahead for some as that is always the case in this type of environment, Kelly says.

“But the industry has been on a continuous upward trend for about 10 years, a particularly long growth cycle. It always had to come to an end, and now we are going to see a correction, rather than a crash.”

Demand for builders and new builds has far exceeded supply in recent years, and the coming downturn is likely to change that, Certified Builders chief executive Malcolm Fleming says.

There will be some shaking out within the industry, but it will be more of a realignment after an extraordinary boom time than a crash, he says.

“New Zealand still has a housing deficit, and the Government has been working to get away from the boom-bust cycle we’ve had in the past. So there is Kāinga Ora work that needs to be done, as well as some iwi social housing projects.”

There is also the retirement home building space, which continues to grow, and demand for work in the renovation and refurbishment remains strong, he says.

“For consumers who want to build, there will now be more opportunities for them to get the builder they want and to work with their builder closely.

“But cost concerns mean there is likely to be a realignment of expectations around the size of the house they need as the bigger it is, the higher the cost.”

There is still buyer demand out there, but many buyers are sitting on the sidelines because they can not get finance, or because they want to see what happens with the market, Waikato developer John Kenel says.

“The market has slowed, more than it should have because of the tighter LVRs and the CCCFA rules. Now, the only people buying and selling are those who have to, so there has been a big decline in new build inquiries.”

But while there are fewer inquiries, which affects orders, the inquiries he is getting are more serious, he says. “There was a lot of speculation, people buying off-the-plan and hoping to flip, and that has gone.”

Kenel, who is chief executive of Assured Property, thinks the market will stagger along until something changes to offer more certainty to buyers. That might be a reduction in the LVRs, or a stabilisation of interest rates.

“Builders and developers are affected by the downturn in the cycle, but that is what it is – part of the cycle. I’m not panicking, and I don’t think the bottom will drop out of the market. People need homes, and property remains a stable and secure asset.”

Economist Tony Alexander says consent numbers will fall away rapidly, and a fair amount of those already issued will not be built.

“Lots of people are over-exposed as the high level of demand for new builds has dropped off, and many of the inexperienced and over-optimistic would-be developers who entered the market will see failure.”

But there will not be a repeat of the industry crashes of the 1970s, when consents dropped from 40,000 in 1975 to 15,000 in the early 1980s, or the GFC, when consents dropped from 26,000 in 2007 to 13,500 in 2011, he says.

“Back in the GFC, mortgage rates were at 10.5%, while unemployment jumped from 3.6% in late 2007 to 6.1% by late 2010, and stayed close to 6% through to 2013.

“This time round, unemployment is not likely to go much further than 4%, some fixed mortgage rates are already coming back a bit, and credit is starting to flow a bit more freely than it was earlier this year.”

He believes buyers are still round, but waiting in the shadows to see what happens with interest rates and house prices.

“When there is more certainty, they will re-enter the market, but over the next year or so we’ll see a collective focus on falling consent numbers. This will be a mild reality check for the home building sector, but it won’t be a horror show.”

Source: Stuff

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