social housing

Housing safety and compliance professionals enter the second half of 2026 facing one of the most demanding periods the sector has seen. New legal duties, rising regulatory scrutiny, increasing expectations around competence and conduct, and persistent operational challenges are converging at the same time.

For the people responsible for keeping homes safe, this is not a year to watch from the sidelines. It is a year to be prepared, connected and ahead of what is coming.

Housing 21’s Holm Court Extra Care scheme in Suffolk has been rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), following an inspection in April.
The rating is the highest awarded by the regulator and marks a continued improvement for the Extra Care service, which provides 32 flats with support, following a previous Good judgement in its last review in 2017.

A package of specialist products from Altro has helped deliver a high-performance ‘home from home’ refurb at a leading dementia-care home in Middlesex.

The Woodlands Residential Care Home in Ickenham is a family owned and run business providing dementia, respite and day care in a comfortable and secure environment. When the team wanted to expand and upgrade its facilities, they knew careful planning and design would be crucial, as would working with a range of products designed for the specific challenges dementia care environments can bring.

If you are responsible for building safety, you are expected to know where your risks sit, understand your responsibilities and be able to evidence control. Some risks are obvious. Others sit just outside immediate view: in the detail, in how systems interact and in where responsibilities overlap.
 

From July this year, the closure of Wren Insurance Association marks a pivotal shift in how professional indemnity (PI) risk is managed across the construction sector. While the immediate impact falls on architects, the implications extend well beyond design practices affecting contractors, developers and the wider supply chain at a time when building safety and compliance remain under intense scrutiny.

Valcan, manufacturer of cladding systems, works with project teams navigating façade design, fire performance and regulatory change. In collaboration with Consort Insurance, and drawing on insight from Daniel White, we’ve explored what Wren’s closure means in practice, why it matters now, and how firms can respond more resiliently.

As the Future Homes Standard (FHS) moves into its final policy stage before implementation, the Waste Water Heat Recovery (WWHR) sector, led by Showersave and Recoup, has identified that the framework may limit opportunities for reducing domestic hot water (DHW) demand – despite hot water accounting for one of the largest energy demands in both new-build and existing homes undergoing decarbonisation and retrofit improvements.

In January 2026, Ofgem launched new consumer protection rules to begin regulating the heat networks sector in Great Britain. This was a major milestone that will, over time, change how these services operate, putting consumers at the heart of everything they do. Ofgem have now launched a new digital service, and all heat networks are required to register in this service by 26 January 2027.  and all heat networks are required to register in this service by 27 January 2027.