social housing

With the latest Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) guidance placing greater focus on Falls Between Levels, now is the time for housing providers to review their opening window safety measures and assess what the updated guidance means, and is having a restrictor fitted adequate.

The HHSRS provides a useful reminder that housing safety is about identifying and managing risk, rather than simply ticking off products or features. HHSRS covers 21 potential hazards, including Falls Between Levels: falls from one level to another, such as through a window where guarding or edge protection is too low or defective.

Premiere Kitchens has invested £3.25m in new manufacturing equipment for its Gloucester factory to give housing providers greater certainty across planned works, new-build and fast-moving void programmes.
For social landlords, manufacturing capacity matters most when it removes risk from a programme. A kitchen arriving late can hold up several trades, extend a void period and adding cost before a property is ready to let.

Tough metal pipe boxing from UK Boxings is installed in a diverse range of social housing projects to conceal exterior services, such as gas supply and low carbon distributed heating pipework as well as pipes and systems associated with ground source or air source heat pumps.

The Prime Minister and Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, have allocated almost £10 billion to kick start a surge in social housing construction.
 

Prior to his promotion to PM, Mr Burnham said he would make housing a priority by launching ‘the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post‑war period’.

Two months on and long term funding has now been confirmed for 33 strategic partners – councils, housing associations and other providers – in a bid to follow through on the promise. 

The social housing sector is presenting an ever growing list of challenges to providers. Increasing demands from building safety standards, decarbonisation targets and consumer regulation mean that budgets are being stretched further than ever before. The recent end of ECO4 funding and the introduction of new regulations such as Awaab’s Law only scratch the surface of considerations landlords across the UK will now need to consider as part of their wider business strategy.

IVC Commercial exhibited at Manchester’s Housing 2026, showing providers, builders and specifiers how its sheet vinyl floors can meet the demands of affordable housing.

IVC Commercial exhibited at Housing 2026, showcasing its dedicated social housing collections that are affordable for providers and developers, and which have the ability to improve lives for tenants.

There has never been more focus on safety and compliance in social housing.

New legislation, revised standards and rising expectations are changing how landlords think about risk, responsibility and assurance. Awaab’s Law, the revised Housing Health and Safety Rating System, the new Competence and Conduct Standard, access challenges, data quality and building safety reform are often discussed separately. In practice, they are part of the same bigger shift.