Blackpool's social housing challenge - frustration, innovation and the colourful homes showing what can be achieved
The town has 12,000 people on the housing waiting list. As Barry Lanza describes being left homeless we ask what is being done?
Barry Lanza was given just minutes to pack his bags and leave the Blackpool flat he’d called home for 36 years when the building was condemned.
The 72 year old, who has a brain tumour, prostate cancer and COPD, was forced to pack his medication and head to a guest house with his two chihuahuas, before paying for two nights in a Travelodge at his own expense and then staying with friends.
“It’s a nightmare,” says Lanza. “If it wasn’t for my friends I wouldn’t have got anywhere.”
The building next to his, a derelict former department store, was being demolished. Scaffolding had fallen to within six inches of his patio door at the South Shore property. His garden was ruined, fences were down and a kitchen window was broken.
“It’s upsetting – 36 years of memories and there’s no way I can take everything with me.
Not even an apology or a penny in compensation – that’s what upsets me.”
In Blackpool, Lanza was about to be rehoused as The Blackpool Lead went to press. With the intervention of local MP Chris Webb and Blackpool Council, he was set to move into a supported flat in Bispham – not ideal, as it’s six miles and a £10 taxi away, but he hasn’t entirely ruled out being able to move back if the house is ever rebuilt.
“The council, the MP and the landlord have been brilliant,” he says. “It’s just the developers.”
Blackpool has 12,000 people on its social housing waiting list but 1,000 social homes were sold or demolished in 2013-23, according to housing and homelessness charity Shelter. Three-quarters of its private renters rely on housing benefit. Webb says a letting agent told him that 30 applications for one property is normal. But many privately rented properties in inner Blackpool fall well below standard. Mould is widespread, much of it falling into category 1, a serious threat to health and safety.
Blackpool Council has responded to the local manifestation of the housing crisis with an innovative private rented company in which it is the sole shareholder. Getting going in 2016, Blackpool Housing Company has acquired and refurbished 660 homes, many from former guest houses, which it then rents out in the private market while offering additional support to tenants, such as a 24-hour helpline.
It’s a response to high levels of deprivation and a dysfunctional housing market, according to interim managing director Lee Burrell, with private landlords profiting from a model of minimum investment but high rates of return, supported by housing benefit. The result was “overwhelmingly poor quality”.
Burrell says Blackpool Housing Company is a way of being agile and tackling the marketplace from the inside, rather than trying to regulate it from the outside. “It was a unique decision, driven by social values rather than strict commerciality, but we are a commercial business.”
Rents are higher than local housing allowance but “significantly less than market”. Blackpool Housing Company runs checks on prospective tenants, and works with the council to identify those in need of housing. Many are on benefits but a “good proportion” are self-payers.
Tenancy sustainment is high, showing it offers secure housing. And with the government’s forthcoming Renters’ Rights Bill containing strong measures to protect tenants from unscrupulous landlords, Blackpool Housing Company is a further challenge to the private rented sector to drive up its own standards.
“We’re effectively a disruptor,” says Burrell. “We are saying to the private rented sector, unless you can meet these minimum standards you are going to find it difficult. Our minimum standards are probably the minimum for new places coming on to the marketplace.”
An added benefit is that Blackpool Housing Company employs mainly local SMEs for the refurbishment. Of 180 workers on its portfolio, Burrell says around 170 are from the local FY postcode. “That’s important for our shareholder, which pushes us hard.”
This story is part of a feature, published in our sister title The Lead, which explores the challenges across the North of England when it comes to social housing.
Two years since the Troutbeck scheme - a sign of social housing to come?
As you head into Blackpool on Preston New Road, having just left the M55 there’s a distinctive flash of yellow when you pass the Esso garage.
Known as Troutbeck Crescent the £10m scheme was completed in November 2022.
Described as a 'contemporary housing scheme' the 75 homes replaced the original six three-storey blocks on the site in Mereside.
Cabinet member for economy and built environment, councillor Mark Smith, said the Troutbeck scheme shows Blackpool's aspirations when it comes to housing.
He said: "I think when you drive into the town and you see those houses then it makes you think wow that's different to what was there before.
"My belief is we have to build homes that people want to live in, they want to invite their friends and family to, they are proud of. This also means they stay there and start to build a community.
"The Troutbeck scheme is a great example of the kind of housing we are investing into in Blackpool.
"And it's not just Troutbeck, the homes in Grange Park and other places too are built to this higher quality."
Cllr Smith said the upcoming £90m investment of new and refurbished homes, backed by Home England for Blackpool town centre, would draw inspiration from what had been done in Troutbeck.
He said: "Refurbishment is as important as building a lot of the time, we have a big challenge in the town about the lower quality of some housing stock.
"Troutbeck certainly has raised the bar of what we expect to see delivered now and we will be pushing developers and housing associations to make sure we're putting in features like very good insulation and solar panels so it is more efficient to run the homes after they are built too."
Chief executive of Blackpool Coastal Housing, John Donnellon, who manage the Troutbeck scheme said: "As with a lot of our properties then we are talking about housing which dates back to the 60s and 70s.
"With Troutbeck we took the decision rather than try and refurbish what we had then it was better to take what was rather foreboding one-person flats and completely re-do them.
"We wanted it to be a scheme which really set the standard for what we're doing with social housing in Blackpool."
The social housing firm manages around 5,000 properties across the town.
Donnellon said: "The make-up of the block before was single-person flats and now it has more of a mix, with more family accommodation within it.
"I think that's really changed the dynamic of how people view and live in Troutbeck."
Further schemes since Troutbeck have drawn on the eco-features which were fitted as standard and Donnellon said will be a big part of other refurbishment or rebuild schemes in the future - but it all depends on costs.
He said: "It's a balancing act as while we don't have the pressures in terms of payback period that private developers have we have to balance that with the level of, quite rightly, regulations and standards we need to meet and social rents are the lowest.
"But as we've seen with Troutbeck where we have that support, from both local and central government, then we can deliver really high quality schemes of great social housing."
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