She had moved, with her family, from a crowded one-bedroom flat in London to a spacious semi-detached house overlooking rolling hills. She was just disappointed that it had taken her so long to find out about this option.
This experience, together with meeting other families who have moved from a high-demand to a low-demand area, have made me a passionate advocate of such regional mobility schemes. I have been struck by how these schemes help to increase individual human happiness.
When I left Burnley, I realised that there was a real need for some national co-ordination of these regional mobility schemes, to ensure that all tenants were offered maximum choice. So I was very pleased when the LAWN regional mobility initiative was relaunched last year to bring about just such coordination. LAWN stands for London Alliance West and North, but in practice acts as the bridge between referring and receiving landlords involved in tenants' moves, offering advice and best practice.
A lot of people are cynical about such schemes. References to dumping London's homeless are all too often repeated.
But these projects are really about choice. Why shouldn't social tenants have the choice to move around the country? The whole idea is to extend choice and let people know their options.
As LAWN was relaunched, I expected there to be huge interest from social landlords needing to fill low-demand housing in the North and Midlands and politically motivated scepticism from referring landlords.
How wrong I was. Yes, so far around 800 families have moved to their desired location, but the bulk of the enthusiasm from landlords has been concentrated in London, the South-east and, increasingly the South-west. This part of the scheme has been so successful that the full potential has not even begun to be tapped.
Empty homes were filled, extra income was acquired and the new tenants helped to stimulate demand, so I’m surprised at the slow response from landlords century or more
A LAWN conference in London late last year was massively over-subscribed and I understand that in London alone there are now more than 1000 people who are interested in moving – but without identified properties to move into.
I have been surprised by the slow response from social landlords with empty homes in areas of low demand. I thought that, based on the Burnley experience – where empty homes were filled, additional rental income was acquired and the new tenants helped to stimulate local demand – that there would be strong interest in this scheme. But Midlands and Northern social landlords have not been as interested as I expected.
LAWN has set up a number of regional seminars to address the concerns of receiving social landlords; yet the response has been lukewarm. Mobility schemes will not be appropriate for every landlord, but it is surely an option worth exploring?
The scheme is not the whole answer to tackling low demand, but it is an interesting part of the solution, and it would be good to see more social landlords exploring it.
One development that I think would help advance this initiative is if regional mobility schemes could be seen as an integral part of the current housing market renewal fund. LAWN is supported by both the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and by the Housing Corporation, so it would be excellent to see these two bodies ensuring that regional mobility is included on the agenda of the pathfinders.
My hope is that regional mobility schemes are at least given serious consideration in areas of low demand. And my concern, based on the current evidence, is that they are being rejected out of hand without such consideration.
After all, every tenant should at least have the chance to find their Burnley.
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
Jonathan Ellis is chief executive of the Empty Homes Agency
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