The seaside town where there are not enough homes to go around – and the rental market is broken

Published

1 year ago

March 18, 2024

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It’s early on a Monday morning and the sliding doors to the office of Hastings Council haven’t stopped moving backwards and forwards. This is where the homeless come in desperation.

Eunice Dolby is sitting in the waiting area surrounded by suitcases containing all of her possessions.

The 77-year-old lost her husband last year and now she’s lost her home.

After 18 years as a tenant, her landlord used a Section 21 “no-fault” eviction notice to get her out.

“The bailiffs turned up at quarter past 10,” she says.

“I’ve always had somewhere to live. I’ve never been on the streets in my life.”

As she’s describing what happened, her head lowers and she catches her breath.

“I kept it clean and tidy, I’ve left it spotless. I never thought I’d be homeless.”

A few minutes later, 18-year-old Leah Gartside comes through the door with her 14-month-old baby Livia in a buggy. They’ve been living with her parents who’ve also got a Section 21 notice – the landlord wants to sell up.

“We’ve been good tenants, there’ve been no complaints. We love living there, we’ve been there for 16 years,” she says.

Leah’s come to get help before things get worse and the bailiffs are on the doorstep.

I’m told that this is a typical Monday morning for the on-duty housing officers. I’m here to spend some time with them, to understand why Britain is gripped by a housing crisis that is causing misery for thousands of people.

And local councils are bearing the brunt because they have a legal duty to put a roof over the heads of homeless people eligible for help.

“I would say the one biggest stress in life is losing your home and not knowing where you’re going to sleep from one night to the next,” says the duty officer, Phil Veness.

He has pages and pages of appointments booked on his screen, plus they handle emergencies like Eunice.

Leah is working but she cannot afford to rent from a private landlord in Hastings.

Winner and losers

The seaside town has boomed in the last few years with an increasing number of boutiques, restaurants and bars. Hybrid working after COVID means more people can live by the coast and commute into London.

House prices have seen the biggest relative rise than anywhere else in England over the last decade. Tourism is worth £288m a year.

And there are now around 1,000 Airbnb properties to rent. Passing estate agent windows, you can see the high price for small flats up for rent, often over £1,000 a month.

But popularity has a price. There are not enough homes to go around.

As in many coastal towns, the rental market is broken. Homes that are available cost a lot of money. New analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) shows that housing benefit was paying a quarter of all private rents in Hastings.

The housing benefit bill here is £28m a year and 22% of those properties are substandard.

In England, landlords who rent out homes which are below the decent homes standard receive £1.6bn in house benefits per year, (equivalent to £1 in every £5 spent on housing benefit in the private rented sector).

In other words, according to the JRF, benefits are subsidising poor quality homes.

Darren Baxter, principal policy adviser at JRF, says: “Taxpayers and local councils shouldn’t be footing the bill for poor-quality properties owned by private landlords.

“We need to get this dysfunctional system working again. Strategically bringing private homes back into social ownership is a rapid way to fix this crisis.”

But it’s still not enough. Housing benefit is calculated to reflect the local private rental market – the amount given from central government has been frozen since 2020 and will only go up from next month. It has not kept pace with rents.

This means that in Hastings, like many other parts of the country, there is a gap between the amount of benefit paid and rents charged.

I was told that some landlords have been known to evict their tenants, make their property available for temporary accommodation at a higher rate only then to house tenants who have been made homeless in the first place.

‘I worry about the kids’

Chelsea Braiden is surrounded by bags and boxes again. Last year she and her two sons Harley, aged seven, and Jesse, six, were evicted from the flat they were renting because the landlord wanted the property back. And now they are packing up again.

“I’m stressed because I worry about the kids. That we’re not going to have the right suitable home before things get hard,” Chelsea says.

The stakes are high for Chelsea and she really needs a suitable home to live in because both of her boys are very ill.

Harley and Jesse have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a severe muscle-wasting disease that gets worse over time. They will both need wheelchairs and help breathing. There is no cure. It’s likely they won’t live beyond the age of 30.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to find that suitable property that is big enough for both of these kids to live in. It’s not going to be just for now. It’s got to be until they pass away.”

They are living in a tiny bungalow on the edge of town. The doors aren’t wide enough for wheelchairs.

“You just worry that you’re not going to give them the best life that they should have. You see other children that age and they have decent homes, where they can be kids. My kids can’t just be kids, that’s what’s so difficult.

“And while they’re still walking, I want to give them what they need as kids.”

National picture is bleak

There are 500 households living in temporary accommodation in Hastings and it’s costing the council a fortune. In 2019, the council spent £730,000 on temporary accommodation.

Within the next year, the council estimates that bill will rise to £5.6m. This is a third of the total budget for the whole town – pushing the council to the brink of bankruptcy.

Nationally, the picture is also bleak. Analysis by the Local Government Association shows that the number of households living in temporary accommodation is the highest since records began in 1998, costing councils at least £1.74bn in 2022/23.

But there are glimmers of hope. After packing up, Chelsea’s taking her sons to see their new house for the first time. It’s a bright modern property with a downstairs bathroom and easier access for the boys.

Their housing officer, Vanessa Stock, has relocated four households to make the move possible. But it is still temporary.

Chelsea says she has looked for private rentals but cannot afford it. She works part-time around school hours, but it’s not enough.

Like thousands of others, she is priced out of the market.

Waiting game

There are more than a million people in England waiting for something more permanent – affordable social housing. The rent for social housing is linked to local wages so cheaper than a private landlord. Tenancies are also more secure.

Housing manager Alan Sheppard shows what he calls the “housing register”. It is effectively the waiting list for a house.

On this day there are just six available properties for 1,500 households.

“So as you can see, the supply is nowhere meeting the demand,” Alan says.

‘I don’t get anywhere’

On the other side of town is a former nursing home that has been converted into bedsits.

In the communal hallway some pushchairs are parked up. Most of the bedsits are for homeless mums and their children. Like 20-year-old Jessica, who lives in a small room with her two-year-old son Leo. This is the only home he has ever known.

Jessica is used to this. She has been stuck in temporary housing for five years since she was 15. She knows the housing register system well. She is one of the 1,500 households clicking and hoping, week after week.

“When I became homeless, we went to about five estate agents in town. Everywhere we walked into turned us down.

“I wake up and wait. I wonder if I am going to get a house today. I bid and get nowhere. I get excited thinking maybe I am going to get lucky. But I don’t get anywhere.”

And she’s worried about her son, Leo.

“He’s so used to being in a trapped room that the outside world for him is hard to deal with,” says Jessica.

“Even just going for a walk or going out to a playgroup is strange for him.”

And as each day passes, the council must pay for the accommodation.

Buying back

One solution is to roll back the clock.

In the 1980s, millions of council houses were sold to tenants under the Right to Buy scheme. Now many councils are buying back the homes they once owned to cope with the crisis.

This has been possible with the help of government money. The £1.2bn Local Authority Housing Fund has been split between 203 councils – partly to house Ukranian and Afghan refugees, but also help others in poor quality, expensive temporary accommodation.

Hastings Council has used this, alongside the Move on Fund to fund the purchase of 50 houses along with their own budget.

“Needs must,” says Chris Hancock, director of housing at Hastings Borough Council.

He shows one of the three-bed, ex-council houses with a garden that was bought back from the open market last year.

“We can either keep going, spending £500 a week on temporary accommodation, which just isn’t good enough, or bite the bullet and start building up our portfolio again…

“We can’t afford for people to be in emergency accommodation. We don’t want people living in one room in bed and breakfasts. We want people to be in a home.”

The government says it’s committed to delivering 300,000 homes a year, including spending £11.5bn on affordable homes.

In 2021/22, just 7,528 new social homes were delivered. Nowhere near enough for the 1.1 million people on the waiting list.

Empty houses

A block of flats in a pretty, leafy part of Hastings lies empty. It is owned by Orbit, a local housing association.

Local campaigner Grace Lally is using colourful chalk spray to emblazon walls with slogans questioning why this block is empty.

She says Orbit is deliberately neglecting social housing stock so that it can be sold privately for profit.

“Last summer the people living here were moved out – the housing association said the flats didn’t meet modern thermal efficiency standards. Most of the houses in Hastings are probably not up to modern thermal efficiency standards,” she said.

“It’s just another drain of social housing out of the system. [There are] 53 flats that could be going to people who are on the waiting list. This is a scam. This is not okay.”

A spokesperson for Orbit said: “Orbit is a not-for-profit housing association. We will therefore aim to provide as much affordable housing on the site as planning and environmental decisions allow.

“We took the decision to decommission Clifton Court with plans to redevelop the scheme into new affordable homes given the existing building could no longer meet customers’ needs… We cannot confirm what proportion of the new development will be earmarked for social housing as this will form part of the planning process.”

The mainstream political parties agree on the need for more homes to be built.

The government says it’s “on track” to meet its manifesto commitment of building one million more homes before the end of this parliament and defended the use of temporary accommodation.

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “Temporary accommodation is a vital safety net to make sure families are not left without a roof over their heads. Figures show that the majority of families who have been in temporary accommodation for long periods of time are living in council-owned properties or private rented sector homes rented by the local authority. This provides a suitable home whilst families wait for settled accommodation, and councils have a responsibility to help families find this as quickly as possible.

“That’s why we are giving them £1.2bn over three years through the Homelessness Prevention Grant, and our £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme will go further to deliver thousands more affordable homes to rent and buy across the country.”

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader and shadow housing secretary is making big promises ahead of the election.

“After 14 years of failure, the Conservatives have utterly failed to deliver the safe, secure and affordable homes Britain needs,” she said.

“Labour will put an end to the Tories’ housing emergency by ending the scourge of no-fault evictions, getting Britain building again with 1.5 million new homes, and delivering the biggest boost to affordable, social and council housing for a generation.”

No quick fix

Back at the front desk, Phil has nearly completed his meeting with Leah, the single mum we met at the council offices in the morning.

She is just the latest in a long line of people who need a home.

Phil says: “For a one-person property the average waiting time in Hastings is four years.

“For a two-bedroom place, it’s five years. And for a three-bedroom, it’s six years.”

Leah shakes her head. Her journey into the unknown is just beginning.

This is the first special report in Faultlines, a Sky News series that aims to explore some of the biggest issues facing Britain in an election year.

You can watch Nick Martin’s full report today at 6.30am, 10.30am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm and 6.30pm on Sky News.

UK

How Prevent is tackling young extremism 20 years after the 7/7 bombings

Published

5 hours ago

July 6, 2025

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How Prevent is tackling young extremism 20 years after the 7/7 bombings

Radicalised nine-year-olds, teenagers mixing incel culture with extreme right ideologies and a Muslim who idolises Hitler – this is just some of the casework of those tasked with deradicalising young extremists in the UK.

Monday will mark 20 years since the 7/7 attacks on the London transport network when four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 770 others.

A year later the government set up its deradicalisation programme Prevent as part of its counter-terrorism strategy.

Sky News has spoken to two leading intervention providers (IPs) at Prevent who both say their work is getting ever more complex and the referrals younger.

The Metropolitan Police’s Prevent co-ordinator, Detective Superintendent Jane Corrigan, has also told Sky News it is “tragic” that when it comes to terrorism, “one in five of all our arrests is a child under 17”.

She believes parents should talk to their children about what they are reading and seeing online.

“Parents instinctively know when something doesn’t feel right when their child is becoming withdrawn or isolated – not wanting to engage,” she says.

People worried that someone they know has thoughts that could lead to terrorism can refer them to Prevent.

‘A pic-n-mix of ideologies’

Home Office figures show 11-year-olds are the largest age group to get referred.

Concerning cases are passed on to IPs such as Nigel Bromage who told Sky News: “Often there will be a pic-n-mix of ideologies.

“From my own examples and experience, we are aware of people looking at the incel culture and mixing that with some far-right elements.”

Incels, meaning “involuntary celibates” are men who have been unable to have a relationship with women despite wanting one and become misogynistic and hateful as a result.

Like many IPs, Mr Bromage from Birmingham comes from an extremist background himself, having once been a regional organiser for the proscribed Neo-Nazi group Combat 18.

For him too, it began as a child.

“It all started with someone giving me a leaflet outside my school gates,” Mr Bromage says.

“It told me a horrific story about a mum getting killed by an IRA bomb explosion – and at the end of the leaflet there was a call to action which said: ‘If you think it’s wrong then do something about it’.”

He developed a hatred for Irish republican terrorism which morphed into general racism and national socialism.

“At the very end I thought I was going to go to prison, or I would end up being hurt or even killed because of my political beliefs,” he says.

Boy, 9, groomed by his brother

Mr Bromage reveals his youngest case was a nine-year-old who had been groomed by his brother.

“He was being shown pro-Nazi video games, and his older brother was saying ‘when I go to prison or I get in trouble – they you’re the next generation – you’re the one who needs to continue the fight’,” he says.

“Really, he had no interest in the racist games – he just wanted to impress his brother and be loved by his brother.”

Every year, nearly 300 children who are 10 or younger are referred to Prevent.

Home Office figures show that over the last six years 50% of referrals were children under the age of 18.

Eleven-year-olds alone make up a third of total referrals, averaging just over 2,000 a year, with the figure rising even higher in the most recent stats.

Another IP, Abdul Ahad, specialises in Islamic extremism.

He says the catalyst for radicalisation often comes from events aboard.

Ten years ago, it was Syria, more recently Gaza.

“It is often a misplaced desire to do something effective – to matter, to make a difference. It gives them purpose, camaraderie and belonging as well – you feel part of something bigger than you,” he says.

Clients want someone to ‘hear them’

Some of his clients “don’t fit into any particular box”.

“I’m working with a guy at the minute, he’s a young Muslim but he idolises Hitler and he’s written a manifesto,” he says.

“When you break it down, some people don’t know where they fit in, but they want to fit in somewhere.”

Mr Ahad says the young individual mostly admires Hitler’s “strength” rather than his ideologies and that he was drawn to darker characters in history.

Often his clients are very isolated and just want someone to “hear them”, he adds.

Mr Ahad is also an imam who preaches at the Al-Azar Mosque in South Shields, a well-regarded centre for community cohesion and outreach.

He uses his understanding of the Islamic faith in his Prevent sessions to help guide his referrals away from extreme interpretations of the Koran by offering “understanding and context”.

He says: “We quote the correct religious texts – we explain their responsibility as a Muslim living in the UK and we re-direct their energies into something more constructive.”

Common theme of mental health issues

Mental health problems are a common theme among those referred to Prevent including depression and autism.

A recent inquest into the death of autistic teenager Rhianan Rudd found she took her own life after being radicalised by two white supremacists.

Her mother was critical of Prevent, as well as the police and MI5 after she had referred her daughter to the deradicalisation programme and Rhianan was subsequently charged with terrorism offences.

Last month a coroner found some failings in the processes around protecting Rhianan, but none of them attributable to Rhianan taking her own life.

Det Supt Corrigan says a referral doesn’t mean individuals end up being arrested or on an MI5 watchlist.

She says: “You’re not reporting a crime, but you are seeking support. I would say the earlier you can come in and talk to us about the concerns you have the better. Prevent is just that – it is a pre-criminal space.

“It’s tragic when you see the number of young people being arrested for very serious charges. Just look at terrorism – one in five of all our arrests is a child under the age of 17. We need to think about how we respond to that.”

Prevent has been criticised for failures such as when Southport killer Axel Rudakabana failed to be recognised as needing intervention despite three referrals, or when MP David Amiss’ killer Ali Harbi Ali went through the programme and killed anyway.

It’s harder to quantify its successes.

Mr Ahad says he understands why the failures hit the headlines, but he believes the programme is saving lives.

He says: “I think the vast majority of people get radicalised online because they are sitting in their room reading all this content without any context or scholarly input. They see one version of events and they get so far down the rabbit hole they can’t pull themselves out.

“I really wish Prevent was around when I was a young, lost 15-year-old because there was nothing around then. It’s about listening to people engaging with them and offering them a way of getting out of that extremism.”

‘Radicalisation can happen in days to weeks’

Det Supt Corrigan says: “I’ve sat with parents whose children have gone on to commit the most horrendous crimes and they all spotted something.

“Now, with hindsight, they wished they had done something or acted early. That’s why we created this programme, because radicalisation can happen in days to weeks.”

Twenty years on from 7/7 the shape of the terrorist threat has shifted, the thoughts behind it harder to categorise, but it is no less dangerous.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

17 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

20 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”