It’s been a busy couple of weeks, politically speaking. The European elections delivered a shock to the established order as Eurosceptic parties of both the right and the left saw their vote share rocket. A by-election in Newark came and went, though this time without the UKIP upset that some predicted. And the Queen travelled down the Mall in her brand new carriage to deliver a speech which was either “busy and radical”, or offered “no change, … Read more
About Adam Terry
Must try harder
“We have to confront this simple truth: if we want more people to own a home, we have to build more homes … We want a functional, stable housing market.”
Not my words – the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In his Autumn Statement earlier today, George Osborne echoed what Shelter has been saying for years: that the only way to fix this country’s massive housing crisis is to build more homes, to stabilise house prices, and to … Read more
Opening the post
It’s always nice to receive post at this time of year. So you can imagine our delight at Shelter Towers when we received a letter from the new Housing Minister, Kris Hopkins. The Minister was replying to our Chief Executive’s open letter to him a little while back.
It was great to see that the Minister wants to work more closely with Shelter – just as we want to work more closely with him. In his opening paragraph he … Read more
We need new homes. And some of them need to be in your back yard
We’ve been arguing for a while (since about 1966, in fact) that as a country we need to build more good quality affordable homes. Sadly, though, the last fifty years have in fact seen an almost continuous decline in the number of new homes being built.
But there are signs that there is an increasing appetite for this to change. At last year’s party conferences, David Cameron urged people to accept that ‘we need more homes in Britain’, … Read more
At risk: one home in every street
Losing your home is one of the most traumatic things imaginable. At Shelter, we have always known this – but even we were shocked when recent research we commissioned from UCL showed that people consider losing their home almost on a par with the abduction of a child by a family member.
And the loss of a family home can have a devastating impact on children. This Christmas, 75,000 children in Britain will wake up homeless, living in temporary … Read more