Bekah Ryder
LightNews LightNews
banner
bekahryder.bsky.social
Bekah Ryder
@bekahryder.bsky.social
1.4K followers 960 following 800 posts
Experimenting at life. Research and social housing. Employed by Altair Ltd and two children.
https://altairltd.co.uk/service/research-and-insight/
Posts Replies Media Videos
bekahryder.bsky.social
Massive CONGRATULATIONS to @drblez.bsky.social for being the runner-up in the @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social Early Career Researcher’s Prize for ‘Measuring What Matters: Tackling Structural Stigma in Social Housing​​‘ www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...
Eve with her certificate
November 26, 2025 at 3:31 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
I know there's a budget n all, but a huge CONGRATULATIONS to @mauricelange.bsky.social for winning the @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social Early Career Researcher's Prize for his paper 'The past, present and future of public housebuilding in England'. www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...
Five people in front of a red background, with two holding Thinkhouse prizewinning certificates - Maurice Lange for the winning paper and Eve Blezard for the runner up paper.
November 26, 2025 at 3:13 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Do you work for a housing association or local authority providing general needs housing? Altair is exploring how tenant mental health interacts with social housing services and what support is needed, through this short survey: survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90939915/...
October 28, 2025 at 12:26 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
This is a worrying loss of supported housing. That is 939 people who won't be getting the support they need to leave hospital, exit homelessness, or be supported to live independently.
Graph showing stock change from 2023/24 to 2024/25 for private registered providers of social housing in England. There has been a 0.2% decrease in supported housing stock (equivalent to 939 homes) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68f8a57425d7d8af156dc272/2025_PRP_Stock_Briefing_Note_FINAL_V1.0.pdf
October 28, 2025 at 11:39 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Enjoying this single cover. When I was younger, I was obsessed that tv and film never showed any clothes marks on people’s skin when doing nude scenes. And the fact they never arranged where to meet, just the time. Or locked their car doors.
Image of a back with word ASCEND indented on the white skin
October 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Spotted in @theweek.com, this says a lot about the British public

21% of British adults believe that tea is grown in the UK, rising to 46% for those aged 25 to 34.
Kantar/The Independent
Image showing text reading: 21% of British adults believe that tea is grown in the UK, rising to 46% for those aged 25 to 34. Kantar/The Independent
September 28, 2025 at 10:01 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Altair Ltd is recruiting for both Senior Development Consultant and Development Consultant roles within our Development & Regeneration team - fantastic opportunities to work on projects that shape new homes and communities.

Find out more and apply here:

altairltd.co.uk/working-at-a...
September 26, 2025 at 2:25 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Doing Altair's latest stocktake, and find this from the Regulator's latest quarterly survey very striking: capital market investment in social housing is at a six-year low. It's expensive to borrow long-term with gilt yields and interest rates high, which makes short-term bank loans more attractive.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/quarterly-survey-for-q1-april-to-june-2025/quarterly-survey-for-q1-april-to-june-2025
September 26, 2025 at 10:20 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
We are looking for a Senior Consultant to join our Transformation & Change team! 🌟

Fantastic opportunity to make a real difference. If you're a strategic thinker with solid project management experience + a flair for driving change, we’d love to hear from you.

altairltd.co.uk/current-role...
September 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
The @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social Early Career Researcher’s Prize (ECRP) closes on 25th Sept, don’t miss out!

@anyamartin.bsky.social, Former Director of PricedOut, won the 2019 ECRP and says it "was a great step in my research career".

Find out how to apply👉 www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...
September 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Good reading for those preparing for Awaab's Law:

"The 1.3 million damp occupied homes contained 470,000 vulnerable households, 1.0 million dependent children (of which 482,000 were in relative low income), and 324,000 people aged 65 or over."

www.gov.uk/government/s...
July 17, 2025 at 8:59 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Thrilled to announce the launch of the CIH Futures survey of young housing professionals. We'd love to hear your experiences.
🗓️Open until 8th August 2025
👥 For housing professionals under 35
🎁 Complete the survey for a chance to win one of two £50 vouchers!

👉 survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90846176/...
July 10, 2025 at 10:38 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
I moan enough about how family UNfriendly most UK trains are, so only fair to say a big thanks to the @gwr.com conductor who took pity on me & the kids sitting on the floor of the overcrowded train & gave us a table and drinks in 1st class, even carrying our bags there. Thank you for the kindness.
June 29, 2025 at 4:20 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
My 2yo’s morning traffic jam now has #Housing2025 ducks
Line of toy cars on floor with rubber ducks on the toy car roof
June 27, 2025 at 11:33 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Numbers on local authority social housing waiting lists continuing to climb in England - nearly 43,000 more families waiting in 2024 compared to 2023, a 3% increase.

Since 2020, there are 193,500 more households waiting, a 17% increase (but numbers aren't reaching the recent peak in 2012).
June 26, 2025 at 9:43 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Unwound and cooled off in this lushness this evening ❤️
Image of a body of water in the sun, next to a red brick building with trees in the foreground and cirrus clouds streaked like eyebrows across the blue sky
June 20, 2025 at 6:37 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Anyone going?
June 20, 2025 at 3:16 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
About three months until the deadline for the @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social early career researcher's prize - see what winning in 2024 has meant to @michael-s-marshall.bsky.social and get thinking about submitting by checking out the details here www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...
June 18, 2025 at 2:58 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
This from HOS on Hackney is interesting too "High performance expectations or aspirations are positive, but they cannot be achieved without first getting the basics right." www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/app/uploads/...
However, we heard from some landlord staff that the biggest barriers to progress ran deeper and predated both Covid-19 and the cyber-attack. The landlord appeared to aspire to ‘be the best’ or ‘lead the way’. High performance expectations or aspirations are positive, but they cannot be achieved without first getting the basics right. Instead, it appears the landlord was pursuing aspirational work without undertaking analysis to understand the core issues it was trying to solve, which were repeatedly presenting in its complaints. The landlord proudly reported its progress against KPIs, while ignoring the fact many of these did not address the housing management issues that impacted its residents the most. It often defended its decision making without heeding concerns being raised.
June 18, 2025 at 1:35 PM
bekahryder.bsky.social
There is more social housing providers can be doing on transport - only 5% of social rented dwellings have access to an EV charge point, the lowest of any tenure. This may also partially explain why only 6% of social renters have an electric or hybrid vehicle. www.gov.uk/government/s...
Around 19.3 million households owned or had access to at least one car or van. Of those, around 1 million households reported having access to a self-charging hybrid electric vehicle without plug-in facilities, 629,000 households reported having a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle available and 608,000 households reported having a plug-in electric vehicle available. Overall, around one in ten households (11%) who had access to a car used either an electric or hybrid vehicle. Owner occupiers were more likely to have an electric/hybrid vehicle (13%) than private renters (8%) and social renters (6%). Households in the two highest income quintiles (13% and 18%) were more likely compared with the lowest three income quintiles (7% to 9%). Households where the HRP was in a middle-aged cohort (12% to 13%) were more likely to have an electric/hybrid vehicle compared with those where the HRP was aged 16 to 34 (8%) and 65 or over (10%). Households living in rural areas (14%) were more likely than households living in urban areas (11%) to have an electric/hybrid vehicle.
June 13, 2025 at 9:19 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
13% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK are from domestic dwellings. Domestic transport was the largest emitting sector in the UK in 2022, responsible for over a quarter (28%) of emissions. Road vehicles are the most significant source of emissions in this sector, in particular
passenger cars.
Graph showing that in 2022, 28% of net greenhouse gas emissions in the UK were estimated to be from the domestic transport sector, 20% from buildings and product uses, 14% from industry, 14% from electricity supply and 12% from agriculture. The other 12% was attributable to the remaining sectors: fuel supply, waste and the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector. From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65c0cf2e70428200137521cd/2022-final-emissions-statistics-one-page-summary.pdf
June 13, 2025 at 9:19 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
What has happened to Nutella?
Jar of nutella with a label saying “good morning” and showing a picture of the cornish coast, with beach and green sea in the foreground and rising sun on the horizon
June 13, 2025 at 8:09 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
It includes maintenance and major repairs, service charges, management cost and other costs assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67d171...
June 10, 2025 at 9:45 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
And this excellent collection of essays on whether residential towers are going to be good places to live in the long term questions whether the increased costs of maintaining and servicing high-rise housing are offset by the economies that come with scale. www.levittbernstein.co.uk/site/assets/...
Screenshot of collection of essays on high-rises, saying: "The typical home owner accepts that this is their responsibility. They engage tradespeople and small builders to carry out repairs and improvements to their home and they have the flexibility to schedule work according to their financial circumstances. For the flat dweller things are rather different. They are freed from the responsibility for organising work to their block, but they have little control over the timing, extent or cost of any work outside their home and quite often inside as well. This applies to all apartments, but with scale and density comes complexity, and with height more external fabric becomes more exposed to the weather and more complex services are required. Theoretically these greater costs are offset by the economies that come with scale – thus the cost of maintaining a lift for example, is born by all the apartments in the building resulting in modest cost per capita. In practice it’s hard to tell if these economies are realised, and the feedback from our survey suggests that many leaseholders are unconvinced that this works to their benefit. (See survey results in Chapter 7.) "
June 10, 2025 at 8:37 AM
bekahryder.bsky.social
Of course, not all of these refusals relate to housing (and some will be reasonable refusals), but shows some of the challenges around planning in the capital.
And the net additions per 1,000 dwellings in London has fallen since 2020/21 - now 8.49 compared to highest in East Mids at 10.34.
June 5, 2025 at 4:16 PM