New housing agency fast-tracked
- Published: 23 July 2008 10:14
- Author: James Illman
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- Last Updated: 23 July 2008 11:50
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New housing and tenant regulators to be up and running ahead of schedule
The Housing & Regeneration Bill has received royal assent, paving the way for a raft of changes to how social housing is run and regulated.
The bill effectively gives the green light for the creation of both the Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) and the Tenant Services Authority (TSA).
Both bodies are being created as a result of the govenment's decision to merge into a single agency the Housing Corporation, English Partnerships and the homes delivery functions of the Department for Communities & Local Government. The TSA will deal with the regulation of all social housing.
HCA chief executive Sir Robert Kerslake said he was confident that the HCA would now be up and running by December launch – four months before the original launch date of 1 April 2009.
Fears of delay proved wrong
Housing professionals had expressed fears that the bill would fail to get royal assent in this parliamentary session, thus delaying the establishment of both HCA and the TSA.
The bill has seen a raft of amendments since its initial draft; one of the last one to sneak in was a change to include community land trusts, which was proposed on Monday.
Housing minister Iain Wright said: "Community land trusts puts local communities at the centre stage of delivering the homes our first-time buyers and young families desperately need."
