Croydon Council’s Housing Strategy 2024-2029 represents more than policy reform; it embodies a fundamental commitment to restore shattered trust between one of London’s most troubled local authorities and its residents. After years of financial chaos, regulatory breaches, and housing service failures that left thousands living in unsafe conditions, the strategy launched in autumn 2024 charts a path toward redemption through resident-centred transformation, partnership rebuilding, and transparent accountability. With 13,342 council properties requiring urgent improvement, nearly 7,000 households trapped on housing waiting lists, and a damning regulatory history culminating in government intervention, the stakes could not be higher. The question dominating Croydon’s housing landscape is whether ambitious strategic commitments can translate into tangible improvements that convince skeptical residents the council genuinely prioritises their wellbeing after decades of neglect and broken promises.
The Breakdown That Necessitated Rebuilding
Understanding the Housing Strategy’s trust-rebuilding focus requires examining the catastrophic service failures that destroyed confidence in Croydon’s housing provision. In 2021, an independent investigation into Regina Road, a council-owned high-rise block, uncovered conditions so appalling that the Regulator of Social Housing found Croydon in breach of two fundamental consumer standards covering home quality and tenant involvement. Residents endured broken heating systems through winter months, persistent damp creating health hazards, inoperable lifts trapping vulnerable people in their flats, and systemic neglect suggesting institutional indifference to tenant welfare.
The regulatory breach represented far more than administrative failure; it documented human suffering caused by management incompetence and resource misallocation. Families with young children lived with black mould spreading across walls and ceilings, elderly residents struggled up multiple flights of stairs when lifts broke down repeatedly, and disabled tenants found themselves effectively imprisoned in properties lacking basic accessibility features. The physical manifestations of neglect were matched by communication failures, with repair requests ignored for months and complaints met with bureaucratic indifference rather than responsive action.
Tenant satisfaction surveys conducted in 2022-2023 revealed the depth of dissatisfaction plaguing council housing services. Just 59 percent of respondents agreed that landlord services treated them fairly and with respect, while only 44 percent found services easy to deal with, suggesting administrative barriers frustrated residents seeking basic assistance. Satisfaction with communal area maintenance stood at merely 49 percent, indicating widespread neglect of shared spaces that shape daily living experiences and community cohesion. Most alarmingly, only 42 percent expressed satisfaction with repairs services, far below the 58 percent average reported in the Government’s 2020 National Resident Survey, positioning Croydon among London’s worst-performing housing authorities.
Complaint volumes told parallel stories of systemic dysfunction. Between April 2021 and March 2022, housing services received 770 complaints, equivalent to approximately 15 weekly grievances spanning homelessness assessments, housing register administration, and repairs management. By 2024-2025, complaint numbers had escalated to 1,260, representing a 16.5 percent annual increase that suggested deteriorating service quality despite transformation initiatives. Housing Ombudsman investigations between July and October 2024 examined 28 cases brought by tenants against Croydon Council, finding maladministration in a staggering 92 percent, with three Complaint Handling Failure Orders issued for systematic complaint mismanagement.
The financial crisis that bankrupted Croydon three times between 2020 and 2022 compounded housing failures by constraining investment capacity precisely when urgent stock improvements were needed. Asset stripping to service debts forced library closures and youth service cuts while housing maintenance backlogs grew. The contradiction of selling community assets while council properties deteriorated symbolised the wider governance failure that destroyed public trust. Residents witnessed leadership prioritising failed property speculation over basic service provision, with the collapsed Brick by Brick development company consuming millions that could have funded repairs and improvements.
Building safety concerns following the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy exposed further neglect. Croydon owns 46 high-rise residential buildings, many constructed in the 1970s using techniques and materials requiring comprehensive safety assessments and potentially expensive remediation work. Yet systematic building safety programmes were delayed by financial constraints and capacity limitations, leaving residents in tall buildings uncertain whether their homes met current fire safety standards. The anxiety generated by this uncertainty, particularly among survivors of previous building fires or families with young children, added psychological trauma to physical housing inadequacy.
The demographic context intensified housing challenges and resident frustration. As London’s most populous borough with approximately 390,800 residents across 152,900 households, Croydon faces housing demand at scale that amplifies service pressure points. The borough ranks 18th poorest among 33 London authorities, with pronounced deprivation in Waddon, West Thornton, Selhurst, Thornton Heath, and New Addington wards where poor housing conditions concentrate. Nearly a quarter of Croydon’s population is aged 17 years or under, creating family housing needs that existing stock and allocation systems struggle to meet.
The Strategic Vision: Creating Trust Through Transformation
The Housing Strategy 2024-2029 emerged from this crisis context with explicit trust-rebuilding ambitions embedded in its vision and mission statements. Developed through 20 engagement sessions across localities involving council tenants, leaseholders, temporary accommodation residents, care-experienced young people, voluntary sector partners, staff, councillors, and the Executive Mayor, the strategy reflects genuine consultation rather than top-down imposition. The vision proclaims Creating great homes, places, and communities to enhance life opportunities, while the mission commits to Working with residents, partners, and businesses to provide safe and warm homes in thriving, sustainable and inclusive communities.
These statements, while aspirational, signal fundamental shifts from past approaches that disregarded resident priorities and pursued speculative ventures over core service delivery. Councillor Lynne Hale, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Homes, acknowledged in her strategy foreword that with a reputation for ignoring residents and a legacy of failure to invest in homes, Croydon housing is in a poor state, representing a rare public admission of institutional failure by political leadership. This honesty, though painful, establishes baseline credibility essential for trust rebuilding.
Susmita Sen, Corporate Director for Housing, reinforced the trust-rebuilding imperative in her introduction, stating that in recent years, Croydon has fallen short in delivering the excellent housing services that our residents deserve and committing that the strategy sets out the council’s determination to rebuild trust within our community by listening and responding to views about our services. The emphasis on listening reflects recognition that past failures stemmed partly from institutional deafness to resident concerns, with bureaucratic processes blocking rather than facilitating communication between tenants and decision-makers.
The strategy articulates five interconnected priorities designed to transform housing services systematically. Priority One commits to Listen to our residents and provide good housing services, placing resident voice at the operational centre. Priority Two pledges to Provide safe and secure homes, directly addressing building safety and stock condition failures. Priority Three aims to Enable people to lead healthy and independent lives in their homes and communities, acknowledging social dimensions of housing beyond physical structures. Priority Four promises to Maintain the supply of affordable homes that meet the diverse needs of residents in Croydon, tackling housing shortage challenges. Priority Five commits to Work with our partners and the local community to make the best use of resources and manage the demand for housing related services, recognising that council capacity alone cannot solve complex housing challenges requiring collaborative approaches.
These priorities represent more than bureaucratic objectives; they constitute a theory of change for rebuilding trust through consistent delivery against clear commitments. By making specific promises around safety, responsiveness, affordability, and partnership, the strategy creates accountability frameworks against which residents and oversight bodies can measure progress. The risk, acknowledged by skeptical residents with long memories of broken promises, is that ambitious strategies prove merely aspirational if implementation falters due to financial constraints, capacity limitations, or wavering political commitment.
The Residents’ Charter: Codifying Expectations and Accountability
Central to trust-rebuilding efforts is the Residents’ Charter, co-designed with tenants and leaseholders and adopted by Executive Mayor Jason Perry in June 2022. The Charter represents a social contract codifying principles by which the council commits to deliver housing services, emphasising respect, transparency, and responsiveness. Unlike conventional service standards that councils unilaterally impose, the Charter emerged from resident-led discussions following the Regina Road scandal, giving it grassroots legitimacy and moral authority that top-down initiatives lack.
The Charter establishes clear expectations across multiple service dimensions. It commits that tenants and leaseholders will be treated with respect in all interactions with housing staff, addressing the dignity violations residents experienced when ignored, dismissed, or patronised by officials. It promises transparency about performance, requiring regular publication of service standards, completion rates, and satisfaction metrics so residents can independently assess whether the council meets commitments. It guarantees responsiveness to complaints and repair requests, with defined timelines for acknowledgment, investigation, and resolution that remove bureaucratic ambiguity.
Crucially, the strategy commits to extending Charter principles beyond council tenants and leaseholders to all those who receive housing services from the council, including homelessness applicants, housing register members, and private sector tenants seeking enforcement against poor landlords. This universalisation recognises that trust must be earned across all housing tenures and service touchpoints, not just with direct tenants where regulatory scrutiny is most intense. The inclusive approach suggests learning that institutional credibility cannot be compartmentalised, with poor treatment of any resident group undermining confidence across the broader community.
Implementation mechanisms for Charter commitments include staff training on customer care and complaint handling, systems changes to improve case tracking and communication, and establishment of resident scrutiny panels with authority to review service delivery and challenge failures. These accountability structures aim to prevent the institutional drift whereby initial commitments erode under operational pressure, with resident oversight providing external challenge that bureaucratic hierarchies often fail to generate internally. The Housing Transformation Programme, launched alongside the strategy, focuses on specific service areas including housing needs, void property management, and repairs identified as requiring immediate improvement.
Early indicators suggest Charter implementation faces substantial challenges despite good intentions. The Annual Complaints Performance and Improvement Report 2024-25 documented that three Complaint Handling Failure Orders were issued by the Housing Ombudsman, demonstrating persistent systematic complaints management failures. Between July and October 2024, the Housing Ombudsman found maladministration in 92 percent of investigated cases, indicating that responsive complaint handling remains aspirational rather than operational reality. Training programmes and system changes have been implemented, but embedding cultural transformation across large organisational workforces requires sustained leadership commitment over years, not months.
April 2025 brought encouraging news when the Regulator of Social Housing lifted the Regulatory Notice imposed following the 2021 Regina Road breach, acknowledging sufficient progress in addressing consumer standard failures. This milestone represented external validation that improvement programmes were generating measurable results, providing evidence to skeptical residents that commitments translated into action. However, the Regulator’s decision included caveats noting that whilst there is still much to do in improving services, suggesting that while the most severe failures had been addressed, comprehensive service excellence remained distant.
Tackling the Housing Crisis: Homelessness and Allocation Challenges
Trust rebuilding requires addressing the housing crisis that forces thousands of Croydon residents into prolonged uncertainty and substandard temporary accommodation. As of January 2023, approximately 6,979 households remained on Croydon’s Housing Register, representing a 5.9 percent annual increase demonstrating rising need. Average waiting times for permanent housing offers between 2016 and 2021 stretched to five years and eleven months, with one and two-bedroom properties experiencing greatest demand. For families trapped in this limbo, abstract strategic commitments mean little compared to tangible progress reducing wait times and providing secure homes.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, Croydon completed 2,526 homelessness assessments, with a higher proportion requiring temporary accommodation rehousing compared to other London boroughs, indicating either greater need intensity or weaker prevention capacity. By October 2025, temporary accommodation numbers seldom fell below 2,000 households, with London Councils projecting further increases driven by unaffordable private rents, benefit freezes, and economic pressures pushing low-income households toward crisis. The financial costs of temporary accommodation consume millions annually that could fund permanent housing, while the human costs include family disruption, children’s educational instability, and mental health deterioration from prolonged insecurity.
The Housing Strategy commits to fully implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which requires councils to work preventatively with households threatened with losing homes within 56 days. This represents organisational culture change from reactive crisis management toward proactive early intervention, requiring service reorganisation, staff retraining, and partnership development with agencies addressing homelessness root causes including domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health problems. The strategy acknowledges that the destabilising impact that the loss of a secure home can have on both families and single people and commits to bringing down the percentage requiring rehousing duty to London norms during the strategy period.
Prevention approaches include expanding advice services helping tenants sustain private sector tenancies threatened by rent arrears or landlord possession actions, mediating family disputes where relationship breakdowns risk youth homelessness, and providing tenancy support for vulnerable households lacking skills to maintain homes independently. Partnership working becomes essential, with statutory services including Children’s Social Care and Adult Social Services coordinating with voluntary organisations providing specialist support. The Joint Housing and Children’s Social Care Protocol for care-experienced young people exemplifies this collaborative approach, ensuring young adults leaving care receive coordinated support preventing homelessness during vulnerable transitions to independence.
Domestic violence survivors receive specific strategic attention, with commitments to review how homelessness and housing applications from survivors are prioritised and improve availability of priority housing for them. Training for housing staff on trauma-informed approaches aims to ensure survivors receive sensitive, appropriate support rather than experiencing retraumatisation through insensitive bureaucratic processes. The recognition that domestic violence represents a major homelessness cause requiring specialist responses suggests learning from past failures where one-size-fits-all approaches inadequately served diverse needs.
Rough sleeping presents particularly visible homelessness manifestations damaging public confidence in council competence. Between April 2022 and March 2023, 373 people were seen rough sleeping in Croydon, higher than any other outer London borough and representing a 22 percent increase compared to April 2019 to March 2020. While Croydon maintains good performance ensuring many rough sleepers avoid a second night out through rapid intervention, persistent street homelessness involving individuals resistant to accommodation offers challenges simplistic solutions. The strategy commits to working with the Safer Streets Partnership to address anti-social behaviour associated with persistent rough sleeping, balancing compassionate support with community safety concerns.
Trust rebuilding around homelessness services requires demonstrating to both housed residents concerned about street homelessness visibility and homeless individuals requiring assistance that the council takes seriously both prevention and support responsibilities. Perceptions that authorities prioritise community amenity over vulnerable people, or conversely that antisocial behaviour receives inadequate response, undermine confidence from different constituencies. Navigating these tensions demands transparent communication about approaches, realistic acknowledgment of constraints, and consistent service delivery showing all residents that their concerns receive serious attention.
Stock Investment: Making Council Homes Safe and Decent
No trust-rebuilding dimension matters more to council tenants than tangible improvements to their homes. The strategy confronts accumulated maintenance backlogs and stock condition challenges requiring sustained investment over years. Stock condition data reveals that as of March 2022, officially only 0.13 percent of council social homes failed to meet the Government’s Decent Homes Standard, significantly below the 9 percent London average. However, the strategy candidly acknowledges that stock condition survey data would suggest that the number of council social homes not likely to meet the Decent Homes Standard is higher, admitting that official compliance figures understate actual deficiency levels.
This honesty about data limitations builds credibility more effectively than presenting optimistic statistics later contradicted by resident experience. Tenants living with broken heating, persistent damp, or structural deficiencies know their homes fail decency standards regardless of official compliance percentages. Acknowledging measurement gaps while committing to comprehensive condition surveys and investment programmes demonstrates seriousness about addressing reality rather than managing statistics.
The Asset Management Strategy 2024-2029, running parallel to the Housing Strategy, sets out long-term approaches to managing and regenerating housing stock effectively and safely. Priority interventions include assessing 13 Large Panel System blocks where concerns exist about long-term viability, potentially leading to regeneration or disposal decisions requiring sensitive resident consultation. Fire Safety Act compliance for 46 high-rise buildings requires systematic assessments and remediation works addressing cladding, fire doors, compartmentation, and evacuation procedures. Energy efficiency improvements aim to bring average Energy Performance Certificate ratings from Band C toward higher standards, reducing fuel poverty while meeting net-zero carbon commitments.
Repairs service transformation represents critical trust-rebuilding territory given just 42 percent tenant satisfaction compared to 58 percent sector average. The strategy commits to major improvements ensuring responsive, effective repairs that tenants experience as genuine problem-solving rather than bureaucratic obstacles. This requires culture change across maintenance teams and contractors, with performance monitoring, quality standards, and resident feedback mechanisms ensuring accountability. Investment of 32 million pounds during 2024-2025 with further 42 million pounds planned for 2025-2026 demonstrates financial commitment backing strategic promises, though whether this proves sufficient to address accumulated backlogs while maintaining current stock remains uncertain.
Damp and mould cases receive particular attention following the 2020 tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak from mould exposure in Rochdale social housing, which prompted government legislation known as Awaab’s Law requiring social landlords to investigate and address damp and mould within specified timescales. Since April 2023, Croydon records damp and mould cases using separate repair categories with targets aligned to legal requirements, supporting monitoring and follow-up. A dedicated team focuses on damp and mould, with faster repair processes, trained staff, and resident advice on prevention measures including ventilation. As of October 2025, 824 homes still awaited damp and mould repairs, representing significant unresolved caseload despite improvement efforts.
Council responses to criticism about outstanding damp and mould cases emphasise proportionality given Croydon’s size as London’s most populous borough with extensive social housing stock, increased case reporting following media coverage and improved communications encouraging residents to report problems, and ongoing preparation for Awaab’s Law implementation ensuring approaches meet requirements. While these explanations contain validity, residents enduring unhealthy housing conditions understandably feel impatient with contextualisation when their children develop respiratory problems or their belongings suffer damage from persistent moisture. Trust rebuilding requires not just explanation but visible progress reducing outstanding cases through effective interventions.
Building safety represents another dimension where residents require tangible assurance, not just policy commitments. Following Grenfell, tower block residents across the country experienced heightened anxiety about fire safety, with legitimate concerns that historical building practices and inadequate maintenance created risks. Croydon’s commitment to ensuring high-rise blocks are safe, fit-for-purpose and meet net-zero targets appears in multiple strategy documents, but implementation details including timescales, budgets, and resident communication processes remain less clear. Resident scrutiny will focus on whether assessments proceed promptly, whether identified safety works receive funding and complete on schedule, and whether tenants receive regular, honest updates about their building’s safety status.
Private Sector Regulation: Protecting Vulnerable Tenants
With 26 percent of Croydon households renting from private landlords according to Census 2021 data, trust-rebuilding extends beyond council housing to encompass private rented sector regulation. The strategy recognises that a healthy private rented sector plays a vital role in providing good homes and commits to working with and supporting responsible landlords while tackling rogue operators causing misery for vulnerable tenants. This balanced approach acknowledges that most landlords maintain properties properly and deserve support rather than bureaucratic harassment, while minority exploitation and neglect requires robust enforcement.
Stock condition surveys estimate that 23.7 percent of private rental properties contain at least one serious hazard under Housing Health and Safety Rating System assessments, while 27 percent hold Energy Performance Certificate ratings of E, F, or G, the three lowest ratings indicating poor energy efficiency and likely fuel poverty for tenants. Between 2015 and 2019, private rental properties generated 7,277 antisocial behaviour reports leading to 15,746 council investigations, demonstrating that poor property management contributes to wider community problems beyond individual tenant suffering. Houses in Multiple Occupation, providing affordable housing for vulnerable residents including migrant workers, benefit claimants, and young people, present particular challenges with over 800 licensed HMOs and estimated 3,000 additional unlicensed properties in categories requiring regulation.
Between 2015 and 2019, Croydon made 12,172 interventions in the private rental sector, serving 1,307 housing and public health statutory notices on non-compliant landlords. This enforcement activity demonstrates willingness to use regulatory powers, but whether intervention levels prove sufficient given estimated scale of problems remains debatable. Resource constraints limit proactive inspection programmes, forcing reliance on tenant complaints that vulnerable residents often hesitate to make fearing landlord retaliation through rent increases or eviction threats. The reactive enforcement model allows problems to persist until becoming severe enough to prompt complaints, rather than identifying and addressing issues early through systematic inspection.
In October 2025, Croydon launched consultation on introducing selective licensing schemes covering 14 wards and over 32,000 privately rented properties, representing 74 percent of the borough’s private rental stock, alongside additional licensing for smaller HMOs. Executive Mayor Jason Perry stated that licensing schemes allow the council to be more proactive regarding the private rented market and not just rely on tenants complaining about issues, while also supporting landlords dealing with difficult situations and taking action against bad tenants. Licensing fees proposed at 750 pounds per property would generate revenue funding enhanced enforcement capacity, though some landlords criticise schemes as taxation without proven benefit.
Croydon’s previous selective licensing scheme, which ended in 2020 after issuing 38,596 licences, was denied renewal by then Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick who argued the council failed to demonstrate strong outcomes or efficient delivery. This rejection reflected both political skepticism about licensing effectiveness and specific concerns about Croydon’s capacity to operate schemes successfully given wider governance failures. The proposed reintroduction following rule changes that removed central government approval requirements offers opportunity to demonstrate improved competence, but also risks repeating past failures if implementation lacks rigour and follow-through.
The strategy commits to establishing a Private Renters Forum and developing a Private Renters Charter paralleling the Residents’ Charter for council tenants. This initiative recognises that private tenants, often more vulnerable and less organised than social housing tenants with established resident associations, require dedicated engagement mechanisms ensuring their voices reach decision-makers. The forum could provide platforms for tenants to share experiences, learn about rights, access advice services, and collectively advocate for policy changes addressing rent affordability, security of tenure, and enforcement effectiveness. Success depends on genuine council commitment to listening and responding to forum input, rather than treating it as consultation theatre legitimising predetermined decisions.
Renters’ Rights legislation progressing through Parliament during 2025 promises significant reforms including abolishing Section 21 no-fault evictions, strengthening possession grounds fairness, protecting against backdoor eviction through excessive rent increases, creating a Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman, establishing a Private Rented Sector Database, and strengthening tenant rights to request pets. Croydon’s strategy must align with this evolving legislative landscape, preparing for new regulatory responsibilities while supporting landlords understanding changing obligations. The Landlord and Property Agent Forum run by Croydon’s Private Sector Housing Team provides communication channels helping responsible landlords navigate regulatory changes, though whether this reaches smaller, less professional landlords who often create worst conditions remains uncertain.
Section 21 eviction rates demonstrate private sector insecurity impacts. In 2021-2022, 284 evictions occurred under Section 21 no-fault proceedings, with 2019 data showing Croydon among London’s highest for private sector evictions. Each eviction potentially triggers homelessness applications, temporary accommodation costs, and family disruption, creating cascading consequences from private sector tenure insecurity. Abolishing Section 21 should reduce this churn, but only if alternative possession grounds don’t simply shift evictions to different procedural routes, and if rent levels remain affordable preventing backdoor evictions through unaffordable increases.
Affordable Housing Supply: Promises and Delivery Challenges
Trust rebuilding requires demonstrating progress on affordable housing supply addressing waiting list pressure and overcrowding. London Plan targets require Croydon to deliver 20,709 homes between 2019-2020 and 2028-2029, with 14,500 expected within the Croydon Opportunity Area covering the town centre and surrounding districts. By 2021-2022, 5,965 homes had been delivered, with projections suggesting another 11,893 units between April 2022 and March 2027, potentially meeting overall targets but with concerning tenure breakdown.
Analysis of 2020-2022 completions shows 3,400 market-sale units, just 47 market-rent units, and only 703 affordable homes. This heavy skewing toward market-sale properties, while generating developer profits and Section 106 contributions, does little to address affordable housing need for residents on waiting lists or Universal Credit. The strategy acknowledges that projections show insufficient affordable homes to house those on the housing register and that supply must increase, but mechanisms for achieving this amid financial constraints remain unclear.
The dissolution of Brick by Brick, the council-owned development company that consumed millions while delivering minimal housing, eliminated what had been envisioned as the primary vehicle for council-led affordable housing delivery. This failure, while removing a financial drain, created a strategic vacuum requiring alternative approaches. The strategy commits to developing a Regeneration and New Homes Programme setting strategic vision for borough-wide regeneration, but details and timescales remain vague. Regina Road redevelopment, approved by planning committee in October 2025, represents the flagship council housing delivery with plans for 340 new homes including 225 affordable units in the first phase, with at least 215 for social rent. This project, if successfully delivered, could demonstrate capacity for direct provision despite financial constraints.
Partnership approaches dominate supply strategy given council limitations. Strengthening relationships with housing associations including London and Quadrant, Hyde Housing, Clarion, and Southern Housing aims to facilitate development by partners with access to private finance, grant funding, and development expertise councils lack. Setting up a social housing forum to improve joint working and communication recognises that partnership effectiveness requires consistent dialogue rather than ad hoc interactions. Maintaining nomination agreements ensuring the council receives proportions of new housing association properties for allocation to waiting list households protects influence over tenure mix and allocation priorities.
Section 106 planning obligations require developers building more than 10 homes to provide 50 percent affordable housing, with 60 percent of affordable units being social rent and 40 percent intermediate tenure, subject to viability. In practice, viability assessments frequently reduce these percentages significantly, with developers arguing site costs, land values, and infrastructure requirements make policy-compliant levels financially unviable. The tension between enabling development through flexibility and maintaining affordable housing requirements that ensure genuine community benefit creates ongoing negotiations where councils often compromise policy expectations to prevent schemes stalling entirely.
The One Lansdowne development approved October 2025, delivering 806 build-to-rent homes including 116 affordable units near East Croydon station, illustrates current supply dynamics. The approval followed extensive viability discussions addressing challenges that previously stalled the site, with the council accepting reduced affordable percentages enabling scheme delivery. While 806 homes contribute toward housing targets and 116 affordable units provide some social benefit, the development predominantly serves market renters rather than waiting list households, representing incremental rather than transformative affordable supply.
Greystar, the developer behind One Lansdowne, previously delivered the successful Ten Degrees scheme providing 545 rental homes that achieved full occupancy, establishing track record credibility. Yet build-to-rent models emphasising institutional investment and market rents, while valid tenure contributions, don’t address deepest affordability needs for households dependent on Local Housing Allowance or Universal Credit where rents even at 80 percent market rates exceed affordability. The strategy commits to providing genuinely affordable homes including those for residents reliant on benefits, but delivery mechanisms remain unclear beyond hoping partnership housing associations prioritise social rent over more financially attractive intermediate products.
Strategic Housing Market Assessment 2019 data indicates that affordable housing delivered should predominantly comprise two-bedroom and three-bedroom properties at 50 percent and 20 percent respectively, reflecting family housing need. Whether actual delivery matches this tenure and size mix depends on planning enforcement, developer willingness, and scheme viability, with monitoring data essential for assessing whether supply meets identified need profiles or simply delivers whatever proves most profitable.
Partnership and Community Engagement: Collaborative Approaches
Priority Five commits to working with partners and local community to make best use of resources and manage demand for housing services, recognising that council capacity and resources alone cannot address complex, interconnected housing challenges. This partnership principle represents philosophical shift from council-centred approaches toward collaborative models engaging voluntary sector organisations, faith communities, housing associations, health services, and residents themselves as active participants rather than passive service recipients.
Strengthening collaboration with statutory, community, and voluntary sector partners aims to improve resident access to housing services through multiple touchpoints rather than single council gateway. Voluntary organisations often reach marginalised communities avoiding mainstream services due to distrust, language barriers, immigration concerns, or previous negative experiences. Partnership working enables council services to connect with these residents through trusted intermediaries, while voluntary sector expertise around specific needs including domestic violence survivors, substance users, or mental health service users enriches service design and delivery.
The strategy commits to supporting voluntary, community, and faith sector organisations in bids to bring more funding and resources into the borough, recognising that external grants, charitable funding, and social investment can supplement constrained council budgets. This facilitative approach, helping community organisations access resources while maintaining operational independence, leverages Croydon’s diverse civil society as asset rather than viewing community sector as service contractor. Ensuring commissioned partners deliver social value and provide opportunities for Croydon residents embeds local employment and training expectations in procurement, generating community benefits beyond direct service outcomes.
Establishing tenant and resident organisations in council stock encourages collective voice and community self-organisation rather than individualised resident-council relationships. Strong tenant associations can advocate effectively for estate improvements, hold the council accountable for maintenance standards, facilitate peer support among residents, and develop community activities strengthening social cohesion. However, tenant organisation development requires council support through meeting spaces, communication assistance, and genuine willingness to engage seriously with collective resident perspectives even when challenging official positions.
Consulting widely on services to obtain cross-community feedback and establish new links recognises that representative consultation reaching beyond usual participants requires proactive outreach. The 20 engagement sessions across 20 localities during strategy development, involving diverse groups including children, care-experienced young people, temporary accommodation residents, and voluntary sector partners, exemplify inclusive consultation approaches. Whether this engagement intensity continues through implementation or diminishes under operational pressures will determine if consultation proves genuinely formative or performative box-ticking.
A better knowledge of community needs enables more successful resource targeting, while joined-up approaches between council and voluntary sector provide better value for money and increase chances of attracting external resources. These partnership principles, while administratively sound, require cultural changes within council bureaucracies often structured around service silos and contract management rather than collaborative working. Staff capacity for relationship development, flexibility around partnership protocols, and willingness to share credit for successes while supporting partners through challenges all influence whether partnership commitments translate into effective collaboration.
Liaison with Community and Voluntary Partners to set up communication networks aims to establish regular dialogue channels preventing the disconnection whereby councils operate in isolation from community knowledge and resources. Whether these networks evolve into genuine partnerships with mutual accountability or remain one-way information conduits from council to community depends on power-sharing willingness and resource commitments that enable community organisations to participate as equals rather than supplicants.
Confronting Climate and Building Future Sustainability
The strategy acknowledges Croydon Council’s 2019 Climate Emergency declaration and commitment to playing as full a role as possible in tackling the climate crisis, with housing forming essential component of borough-wide carbon reduction efforts. Subject to budget availability and maximising grant funding access, the strategy commits to improving energy efficiency of council housing stock and private homes, contributing toward net-zero objectives while reducing fuel poverty and improving thermal comfort for residents.
Energy Performance Certificate data showing average council housing at Band C, while better than many authorities, leaves substantial improvement potential given government net-zero commitments requiring social housing upgrades. Retrofitting existing properties through insulation upgrades, heating system replacements, window improvements, and renewable technology installation requires massive investment over decades, with costs potentially exceeding 10,000 pounds per property depending on current condition and target standards. Multiplied across 13,342 council properties, total investment requirements reach hundreds of millions, far exceeding available capital budgets without substantial government grant programmes.
The Warm Homes: Local Grant scheme and similar national programmes provide partial funding for energy efficiency improvements, but typically cover only fractions of retrofit costs with councils required to provide match funding and meet eligibility criteria. Croydon’s Carbon Neutral Team workshop for landlords in June 2025, offering guidance on household retrofit and engaging 30 landlords in shaping energy efficiency initiatives, demonstrates proactive engagement with private sector on decarbonisation. However, persuading landlords to invest in improvements without regulatory mandates or financial incentives remains challenging, particularly for smaller landlords lacking capital or those viewing rental properties primarily as short-term investments.
The Regeneration and New Homes programme commitment to ensuring housing stock including high-rise blocks meets net-zero targets alongside safety and fitness requirements integrates sustainability into asset management strategic thinking. Whether this translates into funded programmes delivering actual improvements or remains aspirational given competing demands on constrained capital budgets represents critical implementation question. Residents facing immediate safety concerns or disrepair understandably prioritise those over longer-term environmental improvements, creating political pressures for reactive maintenance rather than strategic investment.
Large Panel System blocks requiring viability assessment may face demolition and redevelopment if retrofit costs prove uneconomic compared to replacement with modern, energy-efficient homes. While demolition eliminates poor-quality housing and enables higher-density redevelopment on valuable sites, it also displaces existing communities, consumes embodied carbon in demolition and reconstruction, and requires sensitive resident consultation ensuring affected tenants support decisions and receive appropriate rehousing. Past regeneration schemes across London have generated conflict when residents perceived councils prioritising land value maximisation over community continuity, undermining trust regeneration ostensibly aimed to build.
Climate adaptation alongside mitigation requires addressing flooding risks, overheating in heatwaves, and resilience to extreme weather events that climate change makes more frequent and severe. Sustainable drainage systems, green infrastructure, and passive cooling through design and landscaping represent adaptation measures requiring integration into new development and retrofitting into existing estates. Whether planning policies and development standards adequately embed these requirements, and whether enforcement prevents corner-cutting, determines actual resilience of new housing as climate impacts intensify.
Measuring Progress and Maintaining Accountability
Trust rebuilding requires transparent monitoring and public reporting of progress against strategic commitments, enabling residents and oversight bodies to assess whether promised improvements materialise or remain rhetorical aspirations. The strategy commits to developing performance indicators tracking service quality, resident satisfaction, housing supply, and outcome measures across all five priorities. Whether these indicators receive regular publication in accessible formats, and whether the council honestly reports shortfalls alongside successes, will test genuine transparency commitments.
The Independent Housing Improvement Board, established December 2021 to provide evidenced, fair and honest feedback on Housing Improvement Programme delivery, continues monitoring transformation efforts. This external scrutiny provides independent assessment less susceptible to organisational pressures to present optimistic pictures, though board effectiveness depends on adequate information access, resources to conduct investigations, and council willingness to accept and act on critical findings. The April 2025 regulatory notice lifting by the Regulator of Social Housing followed Housing Improvement Board oversight and validation that consumer standard breaches had been addressed, demonstrating that independent scrutiny can drive and verify genuine improvement.
Resident involvement in performance monitoring through scrutiny panels, estate inspections, and satisfaction surveys ensures service users directly assess whether delivery meets expectations rather than bureaucratic targets divorced from lived experience. Tenant and leaseholder surveys conducted annually provide longitudinal data tracking satisfaction trends, with granular data by service area, property type, and locality identifying specific improvement needs and successful practices. Whether survey response rates prove sufficient for statistical reliability, and whether the council acts on findings rather than simply recording them, determines scrutiny value.
Complaints data analysis offers another accountability lens, with complaint volumes, themes, response times, and resolution rates indicating service quality and responsiveness. The 16.5 percent complaint increase between 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 suggests either deteriorating service quality, improved accessibility of complaints processes encouraging previously suppressed grievances, or rising resident expectations as transformation promises create anticipation. Housing Ombudsman findings, particularly the 92 percent maladministration rate between July and October 2024, provide external validation unfiltered by institutional defensiveness, forcing uncomfortable confrontations with persistent failings.
Learning from complaints through systematic analysis identifying recurring problems, implementing service improvements addressing root causes, and communicating changes to affected residents closes feedback loops between complaint and improvement. The Complaint Improvement Plan shaped by four focus groups with residents who had complained demonstrates commitment to learning from lived experience, while training on customer care and complaints handling code for all housing staff aims to embed cultural change. Whether these initiatives generate sustained improvement or temporary compliance until scrutiny pressures ease will determine long-term effectiveness.
Benchmarking against other authorities through national performance indicators, sector surveys like HouseMark, and London borough comparisons provides context for assessing whether Croydon’s performance represents acceptable local government standards or persistent underperformance requiring further intervention. The 42 percent repairs satisfaction compared to 58 percent sector average starkly illustrates performance gaps, while the 0.13 percent official Decent Homes Standard failure rate appearing dramatically better than 9 percent London average raises questions about data accuracy given strategy acknowledgment that actual failures likely exceed official figures.
Annual reporting combining quantitative indicators, qualitative resident feedback, independent assessment, and honest appraisal of challenges alongside achievements provides comprehensive accountability. Whether political leadership and senior management demonstrate courage to publicly acknowledge ongoing difficulties rather than presenting unrealistically positive narratives will test genuine cultural transformation toward transparency and honesty. Residents whose trust has been repeatedly violated through broken promises and concealed failures will scrutinise reporting skeptically, requiring consistent evidence over years to restore confidence.
Early Progress and Persistent Challenges
The October 2025 Regina Road planning approval represents tangible progress translating strategic commitments into actual delivery. The unanimous planning committee backing followed extensive resident consultation, with 88.1 percent of eligible voters supporting demolition and redevelopment in 2023 consultation. The plans for 340 new homes including 225 affordable units in the first phase, with at least 215 for social rent, plus new green spaces, play areas, pre-school, community space, and improved sustainable transport infrastructure, exemplify comprehensive regeneration addressing housing, social, and environmental needs simultaneously.
Executive Mayor Jason Perry described the approval as a turning point after years of underinvestment, showing respect for residents and restoring borough pride through building new council homes. Councillor Lynne Hale emphasised that residents have been involved from the start through workshops, consultations and the Resident Working Group, with their ideas shaping homes, public spaces and facilities. This resident-centred approach, if genuinely implemented through construction and allocation phases, could demonstrate transformation from top-down imposition toward collaborative development.
The Regulator of Social Housing lifting the regulatory notice in April 2025 provides external validation that consumer standard breaches have been sufficiently addressed, representing major milestone in improvement journey. While the Regulator noted much remains to be done, the lifting decision confirms that fundamental failings enabling tenants to live in dangerous, poorly maintained conditions have been tackled through governance reforms, investment programmes, and service improvements. This regulatory endorsement offers evidence countering resident skepticism that strategic commitments represent merely performative documentation without operational substance.
However, persistent challenges temper optimism about transformation sustainability. The 1,260 complaints received in 2024-2025, 16.5 percent above prior year levels, suggest service pressures remain intense despite improvement efforts. The three Complaint Handling Failure Orders issued by the Housing Ombudsman during 2024-2025 demonstrate that systematic complaints management failures persist despite training and process changes. The 92 percent maladministration finding rate between July and October 2024 indicates that when cases reach formal investigation, failures remain widespread rather than exceptional.
Damp and mould caseloads with 824 homes awaiting repairs as of October 2025 represent ongoing health hazards for affected residents, particularly children whose respiratory development suffers from prolonged mould exposure. While the council emphasises increased case reporting following improved communications and media coverage, residents living with persistent damp experience these explanations as excuses rather than solutions. Awaab’s Law implementation timescales create legal compliance imperatives alongside moral obligations to protect vulnerable residents.
Financial constraints persistently threaten strategy implementation, with government commissioners controlling council finances potentially overriding housing investment commitments if budget pressures intensify. The tension between debt servicing consuming 70 million pounds annually and housing stock requiring hundreds of millions in improvements and regeneration creates zero-sum dynamics whereby funds directed toward debt reduction cannot address housing needs. Asset sales generating capital receipts provide one-time resources but eliminate properties and land that could otherwise provide homes or generate rental income, representing strategic trade-offs with long-term consequences.
Temporary accommodation costs driven by homelessness pressures create budget drains that constrain capacity for preventative investments in supply, property improvements, and tenancy support services that could reduce homelessness over time. The vicious cycle whereby inadequate resources generate service failures that exacerbate demand pressures requiring expensive crisis interventions that further constrain resources perpetuates dysfunction. Breaking this cycle requires simultaneous service improvement and demand reduction, neither achievable quickly or cheaply, creating implementation challenges regardless of strategic clarity.
The Long Road Ahead
Rebuilding trust shattered through years of neglect, failure, and broken promises requires sustained delivery over the full strategy period and beyond, not quick wins or rhetorical commitments. The five-year 2024-2029 timeframe provides structure and accountability, but genuine cultural transformation embedding resident-centred approaches throughout organisational operations demands generational rather than electoral timescales. Political cycles creating pressures for visible short-term achievements can undermine patient, incremental improvement programmes lacking dramatic announcements but generating cumulative progress.
Staff turnover and capacity pressures threaten continuity, with experienced personnel leaving for better-paid positions or less stressful environments while recruitment challenges prevent timely replacement. The knowledge loss and service disruption from high turnover undermines transformation programmes depending on embedded understanding and relationship continuity. Investment in staff development, retention, and wellbeing represents essential infrastructure for sustained improvement, though often receiving lower priority than customer-facing services in constrained budgets.
Partnership working requires relationship development and trust building extending beyond formal contracts toward genuine collaboration based on shared values and mutual respect. These relationships develop slowly through consistent positive interactions, honest communication through difficulties, and demonstrated reliability delivering commitments. Single instances of council bureaucracy overriding partnership principles or financial pressures prompting unilateral decisions without consultation can damage relationships requiring years to rebuild.
Resident engagement faces participation inequalities, with articulate, confident residents more likely to attend consultations and join scrutiny panels than marginalised communities experiencing greatest housing challenges. Ensuring engagement reaches diverse populations including minority ethnic communities, disabled residents, young people, and those in temporary accommodation requires proactive outreach, accessible formats, and recognition that some residents lack time, confidence, or trust to participate through conventional channels. Representative engagement mechanisms providing genuine influence over decisions rather than token consultation legitimising predetermined outcomes determines whether participation proves empowering or performative.
National policy uncertainties including government funding settlements, regulatory changes, and macroeconomic conditions affecting house prices, construction costs, and interest rates create external variables beyond council control but fundamentally shaping implementation feasibility. Recessions reducing planning application volumes and construction starts would undermine housing supply commitments regardless of local strategy quality. Conversely, government programmes providing substantial capital grants for retrofitting, regeneration, or affordable housing delivery could accelerate progress beyond locally resourced capabilities.
The fundamental question is whether Croydon demonstrates organisational capacity for sustained improvement or whether initial progress proves temporary compliance dissipating once intense external scrutiny reduces. The regulatory notice lifting suggests sufficient improvement to satisfy minimum standards, but whether the council internalises quality commitments as institutional values rather than imposed requirements remains uncertain. Future service shocks including building safety emergencies, fraud scandals, or financial crises could test whether improvements represent genuine cultural transformation or superficial adaptations vulnerable to reversal under stress.
Conclusion: Trust as Process Not Destination
The Housing Strategy 2024-2029 represents essential but insufficient foundation for rebuilding trust between Croydon Council and residents betrayed through years of institutional failure. The strategy articulates clear commitments around responsive services, safe homes, homelessness prevention, affordable supply, and partnership working that directly address failures destroying confidence. The Residents’ Charter codifies principles by which services should operate, creating accountability frameworks against which residents can measure performance. Early progress including regulatory notice lifting and Regina Road approval demonstrates capacity for delivery translating strategic promises into tangible actions.
However, trust rebuilding requires consistent performance over years, not isolated achievements or strategic documentation however thoughtful. Residents evaluate councils through accumulated daily interactions with repairs services, housing officers, and complaints systems, not through strategy document eloquence. The persistent complaint volumes, Ombudsman maladministration findings, and outstanding damp and mould caseloads demonstrate that operational reality frequently diverges from strategic aspirations despite genuine improvement efforts.
The honest acknowledgment in strategy forewords that Croydon has failed residents, combined with transparent discussion of challenges alongside commitments, establishes credibility foundation that defensive denial or optimistic rhetoric would undermine. This honesty must extend through implementation, with regular public reporting candidly addressing shortfalls alongside successes and explaining response plans. Political courage to maintain transparency when performance disappoints and to resist pressures toward manipulating metrics or concealing problems will test whether cultural transformation proves genuine.
Partnership approaches recognising council limitations and leveraging community, voluntary sector, and housing association capabilities offer realistic paths toward achieving outcomes beyond council capacity alone. Yet partnerships require resource investments, relationship development, and power-sharing that bureaucracies structured around hierarchical control often resist. Whether Croydon demonstrates partnership commitment through difficult periods when collaboration proves administratively inconvenient or financially demanding will determine if these commitments represent philosophical shifts or tactical positioning.
For residents, particularly those enduring unsafe housing, prolonged temporary accommodation, or multi-year waiting list waits, strategic commitments provide hope but require evidence through lived experience improvements. Each repair completed promptly, each homelessness prevention successful, each complaint handled responsively builds trust incrementally. Conversely, each broken promise, defensive response, or service failure confirmed reinforces cynicism and disengagement that years of poor treatment have cultivated.
Trust, once comprehensively destroyed, rebuilds slowly if at all. Croydon’s Housing Strategy 2024-2029 charts theoretically sound paths toward service transformation, but implementation over the full strategy period and beyond will determine whether this represents genuine turning point or another disappointment in a long history of failed reform efforts. The journey has begun with regulatory recognition and flagship project approvals, but the destination of restored confidence and transformed services remains distant and uncertain. Residents, through justified skepticism earned from past betrayals, will reserve judgment until consistent delivery over years provides convincing evidence that this time, finally, commitments become reality.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Residents’ Charter and how does it protect tenants?
The Residents’ Charter is a co-designed document developed with Croydon tenants and leaseholders following the 2021 Regina Road scandal and adopted by Executive Mayor Jason Perry in June 2022. Unlike traditional service standards imposed by councils, the Charter emerged from resident-led discussions giving it grassroots legitimacy. It establishes clear expectations across multiple service dimensions including respectful treatment in all interactions with housing staff, transparency about performance through regular publication of service standards and satisfaction metrics, and responsiveness to complaints and repair requests with defined timelines for resolution. The Charter principles now extend to all residents receiving housing services.
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