Ange’s Housing Blog May 2026

By Ange Rochford-Briggs, Social Housing Strategy & Partnerships Lead

Spring has been fantastic so far.  

I’m delighted to have launched our Furniture Forum with landlords from up and down the UK, who operate furniture schemes, getting involved. We plan to meet quarterly and hope to use our knowledge and experience to help each other, other landlords who are considering schemes and to influence policy – particularly in light of the decision to exclude flooring from Decent Homes 2.  

We’ve held various housing summits since my last blog – with the EFP team travelling to Stoke on Trent, Stratford and to Heywood and Middleton. We also hosted a summit at our offices in Speke mid-April, where a number of landlords from across Greater Manchester attended for lively discussion and planning for future joint-working.  

This model is proving to be a great way to meet lots of social landlords and share the details of our campaign, with the support of the local MPs and regional housing partnerships. As well as agreeing guest lists, agendas, inviting participants, I always like to try to get a social landlord along who is already working to tackle furniture poverty. The photo on the left features Siobhan Plant from St Leger Homes and David Willams MP at the summit held in David’s constituency. St Leger have a fantastic furniture rental scheme, which Siobhan spoke about. We thank both Siobhan and David for being such great supporters of our campaign.  

We have lots more summits in the pipeline for the summer, and are in talks with MPs from London, Cornwall, Bristol and Derby.  

Another key piece of work for me personally has been a review of progress amongst the Liverpool-based landlords in tackling furniture poverty. I presented a report to the landlords at a meeting held on 20th April, hosted by Liverpool City Council. My presentation focused on the progress being made towards establishing furniture schemes in the City, together with the support that I can offer, whether that be launching a new scheme or developing an existing scheme. I am keen to see social landlords, both in Liverpool and across the UK, offer any tenant in receipt of benefits a furnished tenancy. Additionally, I extend that offer to any social landlord seeking free support in tackling furniture poverty.  

I am continuing to build up a bank of resources which are featured on our website – these resources include case studies, Q&A and guidance documents aimed at social landlords looking at tackling furniture poverty. This section of our website is still expanding and will eventually hold information for anyone regardless of their role or position in their organisation will find useful.  

The Extent of Furniture Poverty report, which I supported my colleague Abby Preston on producing was successfully published and launched at a MPs’ drop-in event on 10th May. Click here to read the report in full 

Thank you, as ever, for the support from Fusion 21 for my role.