SLAPPs - Ben Jenkins vs. GreenSquareAccord
Ben Jenkins Ben Jenkins

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.

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When Your Home’s Unsafe, Are the Problems Only Just Beginning?
Ben Jenkins Ben Jenkins

When Your Home’s Unsafe, Are the Problems Only Just Beginning?

Eight years after Grenfell, the list of unsafe buildings keeps growing. Thousands have already been evacuated — but how many more remain unsafe, unacknowledged, and unaddressed? In this week’s Housing Sector blog, I speak with Matt Hodges-Long of the Building Safety Register about the rising number of homes being declared uninhabitable, the residents left in limbo, and a government still downplaying the scale of the crisis.

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Service Charge -Breaking Point.
Ben Jenkins Ben Jenkins

Service Charge -Breaking Point.

In recent years, the issue of service charges has become an increasingly contentious topic. Across the UK, housing associations are steadily raising these charges, putting a severe financial strain on residents. What was once deemed "affordable housing" is, for many, becoming anything but affordable. This shift affects a wide range of people—leaseholders, shared owners, and those relying on universal credit or housing benefits to cover rising costs.

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