A New Generation of Housing Professionals
Peabody is investing in better repairs and the next generation of housing professionals, recruiting 20 repairs inspectors, including ten apprentices. With recruits ranging from 18 to their late 40s, the initiative brings fresh talent into social housing while tackling the frustration of repairs that aren't completed properly first time.
GreenSquareAccord — The Ruth Cooke Years
Seven years of strategies, assurances and promised improvements. What changed for residents? Ben Jenkins examines Ruth Cooke’s leadership at GreenSquareAccord through annual reports, independent findings and lived experience — and asks when persistent failures will bring meaningful accountability.
What does it take? Walsall’s proposed £1.4m GSA deal after the downgrade
Walsall Council wants to retain GreenSquareAccord to support people escaping domestic abuse, despite serious regulatory concerns about its governance and finances. We examine the proposed £1.4 million contract, the council’s reasons for continuing—and questions raised by its own supporting paperwork.
The Big ASB Question
When the warnings don't work, what happens next? Using a case involving Platform Housing, Housing Sector examines the impact of persistent antisocial behaviour on residents, the challenges facing housing associations and the difficult question of how far landlords should — and could — go to resolve it.
Southern Housing — DARVO, Lawfare and a Disregard for the Facts
Southern Housing issued warnings to a resident without adequately investigating allegations against him or following safeguards in its own policies, the Housing Ombudsman has found. The landlord also failed to demonstrate that it had properly investigated his complaints about staff conduct.
The decision concerns Lee, a Southern Housing resident, who says he has been subjected to a wide
GreenSquareAccord - Judgment Day
Regulator says weak governance and financial resilience now put the landlord’s long-term viability and social homes at risk. The organisation says services will continue as normal, while residents and campaigners point to a much longer record of poor service and unanswered concerns.
DARVO in Action
In January 2026, Clarion Housing investigated complaints from resident Sarah Killick and concluded that it had identified “no service failures.” However, within weeks one of Clarion’s own senior managers had reached a very different conclusion, there had been “several failures.”
The Trials of Mrs Tranter
The Trials of Mrs Tranter has won multiple industry awards and been promoted as a major customer-service success. But when the claims, evidence, ownership and commercialisation are examined more closely, the picture becomes far less straightforward.
Does Housing Have an Events Problem? Part II
A simple question about what one housing summit had achieved led to deleted comments, legal threats, police warnings and escalating financial claims. This article examines Regener8’s two summits, David Stevenson’s response to scrutiny and what it reveals about housing’s events culture.
Does Housing Have an Awards Problem?
Housing has no shortage of awards, but are they recognising genuine achievement or simply feeding another self-sustaining industry around the sector? In this blog I look at the cost of entering and attending awards, the lack of independent validation behind some winning claims, the risks this creates for procurement, and how questionable awards can undermine the people whose work genuinely deserves recognition.
Does Housing Have an Events Problem?
Does housing have an events problem? With more than 40 housing-related conferences, summits and awards already identified in 2026, I look at the scale, cost and culture surrounding the sector’s events circuit, and ask a simple question: what measurable value are residents actually getting back?
When the Sector’s Own Code Meets Reality
The National Housing Federation has again published its Code of Conduct, setting out the standards of behaviour, culture and accountability it believes should apply across the social housing sector. It is aimed at the people who work for and represent housing associations, including staff, board members and residents involved in their work, and is intended to promote better decision-making, stronger governance, greater accountability and, ultimately, better outcomes for tenants and residents.
It is not legislation, and it is not automatically binding on every housing association; it is a model Code intended to be adopted and adapted. But that does not make its standards meaningless — particularly when the Federation itself presents them as the behaviours people working in and around social housing should aspire to.”
The Service Charge Playbook
There comes a point where the same issues appearing in different places stop looking like coincidence. When missing invoices, rising service charges, delayed responses, and legal escalation all begin to mirror each other across landlords, the question shifts. This is no longer about individual failures. It is about whether there is a system at work — one that tenants and residents have been calling out for some time, but which the housing establishment refuses to acknowledge.
SLAPPs - Ben Jenkins vs. GreenSquareAccord
A housing association whose failures had already been upheld did not respond with reflection or reform. Instead, the response escalated: communication restrictions, legal threats, court action, and ultimately an arrest.
This is not about one resident. It is about what happens when accountability is replaced with control, and when raising legitimate concerns is met not with answers, but with pressure.
SLAPPs are not just a legal issue. In housing, they carry real consequences. When residents are silenced, problems do not disappear. They remain, often hidden, until they become something far more serious.
This is my experience, now raised in Parliament and recognised beyond it. The question is no longer whether this happened. The question is what the sector does about it.
Following the Money - Housing Benefit, Councils and the Accountability Gap
Freedom of Information requests to councils across England are beginning to reveal the scale of Housing Benefit payments flowing into major housing associations. Responses from Birmingham and Walsall alone show more than £60 million linked to one provider over three years, while Wiltshire Council says it cannot retrieve the equivalent figures without exceeding the statutory cost limit. The contrast raises deeper questions about transparency, oversight and how closely the housing sector, local authorities and political networks are intertwined when it comes to the flow of public money.
Who Speaks for Residents? The Governance Dispute at Sir Thomas More Estate
A governance dispute at the Sir Thomas More Estate in Kensington and Chelsea has raised questions about the independence of residents’ associations during major works. With competing claims over leadership, control of communication channels, and concerns over consultation and safety oversight, the situation highlights a broader issue facing housing estates across the country: who ultimately decides who speaks for residents?
Vexatious – The Collective Defensive Noun
When does a complaint become “vexatious” — and who decides?
In this long-form investigation, I examine how the term is increasingly used across the housing sector, how it shifts attention away from unresolved failures, and how behaviours consistent with DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender — are reshaping the relationship between residents and landlords.
The Taxpayers Burden
Millions of pounds in Housing Benefit are being paid to housing associations each year, yet Freedom of Information responses reveal little evidence that councils are checking or challenging the service charges behind those payments. This investigation examines how public money leaves the public purse, what oversight is meant to exist, and what happens when it doesn’t.
Troubled Mergers & Why They Should Trouble Us All
An evidence-led account of how repeated regulatory failures, severe maladministration findings, and financial retrenchment followed the GreenSquare–Accord merger — and why accountability at the top has never materialised.
The Gap Between Governance and Lived Experience
This article examines what happens when Tenant Satisfaction Measures, Housing Ombudsman findings, and regulatory governance grades are placed side by side. Drawing on housing sector data discussed on the Housing Sector Podcast, it exposes the growing gap between how housing providers are assessed and how residents experience services in practice, particularly around complaint handling, accountability, and trust.