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Travellers who play by the rules will get the same rights as other mobile home residents and could benefit from more authorised sites under plans announced by Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.

At the same time, top-down Whitehall planning rules on travellers which Ministers believe has undermined community cohesion and harmed the countryside will be scrapped.

The SNP Government is helping deliver more low cost homes than at any time since the early 1980's, official figures have confirmed.

Between July 2009 and June 2010 there were 5,337 housing association and council flats and houses completed across Scotland, the second highest figure since 1982, and only exceeded by last year's record numbers.

Thousands of women fleeing domestic violence, pensioners who rely on home-help support and people with mental health problems could be forced to fend for themselves under expected cuts to a major government support programme, a campaign group has warned.

The National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations, said that with the Treasury instructing all departments to model cutbacks of up to 40% almost 438,000 vulnerable people could see the outreach support that enables them to lead independent lives axed, and temporary accommodation shut as a knock-on effect.

Tens of thousands of social housing tenants across Manchester can expect consistent levels of service from their landlords thanks to a ground-breaking agreement.

Some 23 leading registered providers of social housing across the city - who between them manage around 70,000 properties - have signed up to a set of common standards guiding how they look after neighbourhoods, working in partnership with Manchester City Council.

Although the number of new completed houses is up this quarter, they are still less than half of what’s needed to meet demand, Shelter has said.

Responding to recent figures that show housing completions rose by 1% to 26,550 this quarter, Shelter’s director of policy and campaigns Kay Boycott said:

A new benchmark for housing design in London will create bigger, brighter and more sustainable homes for the capital.

The London Development Agency has published the new London Housing Design Guide, which sets out the Mayor of London's aspirations for the design of new housing across the city.  It has been compiled after extensive consultation on a draft guide launched by the Mayor in July 2009.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) is calling on housing providers and government to focus attention on developing a wider range of rented housing options that better meet demand for good quality homes.

The CIH report ‘Widening the rental housing market’ found that help is needed in particular for the “in-betweens”, people who aren’t in sufficient need to access scarce social housing but are too poor to get a foot on the housing ladder.

New figures reveal the local authorities that will be hardest hit across the country by planned cuts to housing benefit which will lead to increased debt and homelessness, warns Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people.

The Government announced cuts of £1.8bn to housing benefit in its emergency Budget soon after coming to power.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has issued a reminder to struggling homeowners to seek help early to have a better chance of staying in their homes.

His call came on the day (12th August 2010) new research shows that the number of home owners who have given up their home due to financial difficulties has been much higher than solely shown by repossession statistics.

Almost 65,000 people with disabilities – including those with profound physical disabilities and mental health problems – are at risk of losing their homes because of a government decision to cut support for mortgage interest payments for vulnerable people.

The National Housing Federation says 64,000 people who rely on Support for Mortgage Interest payments will be at risk of plunging into arrears in October when mortgage support from the Government is reduced from the current rate of 6.08% to bring it into line with the Bank of England average mortgage rate – identified by the Government as 3.67%.