Liverpool’s worsening housing crisis
How did things get this bad – and how could we fix it? Plus: your weekly news and events roundup
Dear readers — a warm welcome to your Monday briefing. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and my neighbourhood in Wavertree is currently peppered with flyers announcing the Smithdown Festival returns for its 10th year in May – just one of many things to look forward to this spring and summer. We’re getting so close! (Check out our 2025 masterlist for more events to add to your diaries).
In case you missed it: over the weekend, Abi published a heartbreaking piece about how, across the country, stillborn babies were frequently buried in mass or unmarked graves until the mid-1980s. She speaks with one woman in Merseyside who’s now determined to reunite families with their children's final resting places
Also from last week: make sure you don’t miss Laurence’s investigation into an owner of multiple bars in Liverpool and Wigan, who’s been accused of not paying musicians and bar staff thousands of pounds owed to them.
On with today’s edition, which concerns one of the biggest issues facing Liverpool and, indeed, the rest of the country: the housing crisis.
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The big story: Liverpool’s worsening housing crisis
Context: In the glacial procession of UK politics, the term “housing crisis” has been a permafrost problem for some time. Property prices relative to incomes have skyrocketed in recent decades, and the fall in social housing stock has driven demand up further. Many Millennials and members of Generation Z are faced with the prospect of never getting on the housing ladder.
In Liverpool, the crisis has become particularly acute. People at the sharpest end are in evidence daily, with a tent city popping up outside the Tesco on Hanover Street and street drinkers congregating outside places like the Bootle Strand most days. The number of long-term rough sleepers in the city rose by more than 40% between 2022 and 2024. “4,800 individuals came through our doors last year,” David Carter, the chief executive of the Whitechapel homeless charity, told The Post in December, “which was a 10% increase on the year before.” A worrying component has been the rise in female rough sleepers, with substance abuse and escaping domestic violence both being major factors. Those in accommodation can hardly count themselves better off, subject to the whims of unscrupulous landlords acting with impunity, as we’ve reported in our investigations into exempt housing.
ACORN are a community-based union that represents tenants and residents; they told The Post of a family in Wavertree living with mould and serious structural concerns who are being illegally evicted from the home they’ve lived in since 2004, with the landlord selling the property from under them with no Section 21 served. ACORN also reported the landlord turning up several times without giving prior notice of 24 hours, on one occasion causing damage to the front door with a brick and trying to force entry.
Another case ACORN advised on saw a Netherton tenant hospitalised with pneumonia from damp and mould. Despite her letting agents doing annual inspections and regularly documenting the state of the house, barely any repairs have been done on the property since 2015. “We have no hot water coming though any of the taps,” said the tenant. “I don't feel like we've had any help and me and my partner are both suffering with bad depression and anxiety. Some days we don't even get out of our bedroom, because everywhere is so cold.” The couple are facing eviction, which ACORN say they are attempting to delay.
Meanwhile, the housing groups meant to alleviate these issues are mired in problems of their own. Livv Housing, for example, claim to provide 13,000 homes across Liverpool City Region and the northwest, saying in promotional material that they are “dedicated to providing great homes whilst achieving positive impact and flourishing communities.” However, this morning, their employees – represented by Unison and Unite – entered their sixth month of industrial action after a 30% real-terms pay loss since 2011.
The experience of Livv’s employees is indicative of wider trends. “We’ve got members who are [in addition to being employees, also] tenants of Livv Housing,” James Robinson, branch officer for Knowsley Unison, told The Post. “They’ve seen their rents put up by 7.7% while Livv’s pay offer was only [an increase of] 5%.”
What can be done? Increasing supply and decreasing demand would seem to be an obvious solution. The government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes across the country during this Parliament. If possible — the Home Builders Federation has suggested that it isn’t — such a scheme would be welcome. Last April, Liverpool City Council said it was seeking support from the private sector to help tackle its housing crisis. In September, Sam East, the council’s cabinet member for housing, pledged 8,000 new homes by 2027. The aim is for 20% of these to meet the description of “affordable”.
There is, of course, no agreed-upon definition of affordability. But even if 20% of new houses were not beyond the means of the average Liverpool City Regioner, some question the wisdom of building more housing that’s mostly unattainable for the majority of people. Robinson says the problems on Merseyside didn’t start six months ago, but in the late 1980s through to the 2000s, when housing stock was transferred out of local control. Since its introduction in 1980, the “Right to Buy” policy— which allows council tenants to purchase their social home from their local authority at a huge discount, up to 70% — has seen 2 million social homes sold with only 2% of those replaced. While 1.3 million households are stuck on the social housing waiting list, the private rental sector has doubled in the last twenty years. Now rogue landlords even con millions from the UK tax payer by fraudulently claiming housing benefits for “ghost tenants”: people who have moved out of the property, or never existed in the first place. Whether landlords, builders, or lettings companies, the private sector has been a problem, not a solution.
Bottom line: “The government spends many billions on housing benefit, most of which goes to private landlords and is gone for ever,” wrote Rowan Moore, the Observer’s architecture critic, last month. He argued that shocking amount of money would be better spent on affordable public housing, which need not be “the housing of last resort” but what Nye Bevan called “the living tapestry of a mixed community” where “the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street." According to the Bevan Foundation, “it is no accident that post-war council housing remains some of the most well-built and popular even 60 years on.” It may be that what Liverpool — and the country — needs is a return to this kind of initiative.
Your Post briefing
In the 15 months since the war on Gaza began, the Liverpool Friends of Palestine (LFoP) group has helped organise sixty six marches through the city centre. Veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Andrew Feinstein, who served in the ANC government under Nelson Mandela, praised the city for its continued support with the people of Gaza in demonstration outside the Victoria Monument in Derby Square on Sunday. Feinstein quoted his former boss: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.” Feinstein also carried a message of solidarity and support from former Labour Party leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, who had also hoped to attend the demonstration but had to return to Islington for constituency matters after attending a meeting of a new party, Southport Community Independents, on Saturday. On Friday, LFoP also held a free event at Crawford House on Upper Warwick Street for about 150 attendees, hosting journalists Richard Sanders from Middle East Eye and Asa Winstanley from Palestine-focused news site Electronic Intifada. In October, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on British authorities to cease using anti-terrorism laws to intimidate the press after police raided Winstanley’s house for “encouragement of terrorism”. Electronic Intifada claimed the raid was in relation to Winstanley’s social media posts.
An interim bishop will now be installed in Liverpool after its former bishop resigned in the wake of sexual assault allegations. Last month, Bishop of Liverpool Dr John Perumbalath faced a series of allegations about his behaviour towards women in an expose by Channel 4 News. He denied the allegations but said he did not want the story to be "a distraction for this incredible diocese and its people whom it has been an honour and joy to serve", and resigned from his role. Now, it has been announced that the current Bishop of Taunton, Reverend Ruth Worsley, will be the interim Bishop of Liverpool. She said the church had to listen to the voices of those who raised safeguarding issues, adding she was looking forward to working with the leadership team, clergy and laity of a "vibrant and faithful community". She will serve for two years until the King appoints a permanent Bishop of Liverpool in 2027.
A new independent quarter could be created in Birkenhead according to a plan outlined by businesses and the local authority last week. The Argyle Independent Quarter project aims to connect the bars, restaurants, music venues and creative spaces along Argyle and Market Street to emulate the success of Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle. So far, Wirral Council has invested £44,000 to improve the area's aesthetics and to allow shops and local businesses to be renovated. "It's not a huge amount of money, but the difference it's made to brighten up that whole side of the street is huge,” Ruth Rundle, who owns a party-organising company in the quarter said. She painted her shop premises bright pink after receiving £5,000 from the council. “It's now a visible business to people. People want to come to use it because we look exciting."
And disaster struck again this weekend over at Moorfields. Last week, commuters rejoiced after — over a year of waiting — the escalators at the station were finally up and running. Yet within a matter of days Merseyrail made the dreaded announcement: “Due to an escalator failure at Moorfields, we advise customers to enter via Old Hall Street”. “19 months to fix an escalator. Broke within a couple of days,” one of you tweeted. A staffer at Merseyrail was quick to respond, pointing out this was indeed a different set of escalators that were broken…
Photo of the week
Workmen position the statue of a Liver Bird, the mythical symbol of Liverpool, atop the weathervane of a Liverpudlian firm situated in London's Fleet Street on 30th November 1931.
Post Picks
🎨On Thursday, the Abbey in St Helens is hosting a painting event inspired by the hit book series, A Court of Thorns and Roses. All painting supplies will be provided, with a guided workshop and an expert artist present to assist. Find out more here.
🥊Boxing fans can head over to Boxpark on Friday night for a viewing of the match between Natasha Jones and Lauren Price. They’ll be hosting a pre-fight bingo night from 9pm, with DJ Danny Black on the decks.
🧀If sports isn’t your thing, why not enjoy a cheese and beer tasting over at Black Lodge Brewery Taproom in West Kirby on Friday? The event runs from 7pm to 9pm — tickets here.
📖On Saturday, Liverpool’s Past and History Walking Tours hosts a guided journey through Liverpool to uncover the untold stories of inspiring women from the city's past. The walk begins at 10.30am outside the Anglican Cathedral — find out more here.
Recommended reads
This lovely interview with Tom Baker in the Radio Times is well worth a read. Baker, who is best known for playing Doctor Who between 1974 to 1981, was born and bred in Liverpool, before moving out of the city to pursue religion first, and later acting.
The BBC says New Brighton is on the up. Before you read that one, though, we recommend checking out Dave Lloyd’s excellent piece on New Brighton from 2024, or Laurence’s brilliant essay more broadly about Wirralian identity from late last year. What can we say? We’re trendsetters.
