Agenda item

This report provides the Environment and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee with the annual update on progress in delivering the Housing Strategy 2021–2027.  

Over the past year, delivery has continued across all five priorities, with a focus on increasing housing supply, strengthening homelessness prevention, improving housing options, and raising standards of safety and sustainability.  

The report summarises key achievements and highlights the main challenges and risks, including sustained housing demand, market and viability pressures affecting affordable housing delivery, ongoing pressure on temporary accommodation, and the capacity implications of regulatory reform. It also outlines proposed priorities for the year ahead and the intended approach and timetable for developing a new Housing Strategy, recognising that the commitment to meeting future growth needs is expected to remain a core priority and that the Council will need to continue to act as an enabler, partner and facilitator, as well as a direct deliverer of new affordable homes.

 

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Regulatory Services presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

 

This report provided the Environment and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee with the annual update on progress in delivering the Housing Strategy 2021–2027. 

Over the past year, delivery had continued across all five priorities, with a focus on increasing housing supply, strengthening homelessness prevention, improving housing options, and raising standards of safety and sustainability. 

 

The report was about people and very importantly to make sure more residents had access to safe, secure homes.

 

It was reported that last financial year the Council delivered 145 homes across the conurbation and a further 243 were planned for the next financial year.  Those numbers would clear the Council’s current emergency waiting list, which equated to around 10% of the current waiting list.

 

More than 1,100 households were helped to avoid homelessness in the previous year.  Rough sleeping was at the lowest it had been post Covid and no families had spent more than 6 weeks in bed and breakfast for nearly 2 years. There was a strong focus on the quality and safety of housing services including achieving a C1 which was the highest compliance and governance rating from the regulator of Social Housing.

That rating was an important result and reflected the effort and partnership working across the board. There were still pressures and there was a high demand for housing.  Affordability was an issue for many residents, not just rent but also the cost of living, temporary accommodation was still under strain, and affordable housing was also affected.

 

The changes to the renter’s right were positive but brought higher expectations around higher expectations around assurance, compliance and quality.  The priority of the team was to grow and de-risk the affordable housing pipeline which deepened early intervention in terms of homelessness, widened housing options for residents and ensured safety quality and sustainability were at the centre of everything delivered.

 

The renter’s rights reform was causing issues for some residents as landlords asked them to leave as the landlords are worried about the act and those people have informed that they have been advised to stay put until the bailiffs arrived. It was mentioned that there were people that had been paying their rent but were self employed helped as that was difficult with letting agents as they required certain accounts or guarantors who had to earn over a certain amount. It was stated that the renter rights act was challenging and was not a perfect piece of legislation and there were issues with it but would be beneficial for renters across the period it was in place.  There was a slight rise I section 21’s in the lead up to the changes but not as much as anticipated, that did provide some challenges. 

The team had worked hard to engage with landlords and work with different networks to help them prepare for the changes.

The Council would inform anyone facing a section 21 of their legal right to appeal and go through the court process.  The earlier the residents informed the council of the situation, there was a better chance there was for support into alternative accommodation and avoid homelessness.

The team informed the committee that anyone who was self employed or on low income received a dedicated support and inclusion officer to help source alternative accommodation.  It was on a case by case basis and individual financial assessments, but included self employed people, that worker would stay with the household until they find something suitable. The team could be contacted on housing.options@bcpcouncil.gov.uk which was monitored everyday and there was a portal on the website where residents access information here https://www.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/housing/get-housing-advice

 

Questions were asked around funding and resource, it was asked if the enforcement teams had enough resource and budget to tackle rogue landlord proactively.  The team would always have liked more resource. Private rented enforcement had declined in terms of resources and ability, and it was needing to be reactive, however there was a service plan being looked at that would build back private rented enforcement and regulatory services such as trading standards, environmental health and licensing to be proactive.

With regards to environmental health and the decent homes standard, it was asked if the delivery plan fully funded the remediation of damp and mould and energy efficiency.  The portfolio holder informed the committee that the council had zero non-decent properties.  Regarding grant funding resilience, the team had a plan b farmwork if national grant allocations were reduced or if individual schemes failed to meet funding deadlines. There were longer term settlements that cam in from government, but a significant proportion of statutory service were grant funded and the team did their best to maximise those.

 

It was reported that a member of the committee had reported flats to the fire service and Environmental Health for them not being habitable, they were run by an agency which the fire service was dealing with.  It was asked if there was there a mechanism that would report those instances to the Council.  The committee were informed that the private sector housing enforcement team would have been involved with that.  Some things would be enforced by the fire service and some by the council’s enforcement team.  The teams would work together, and any concerns reported by residents around fire safety in their blocks would be prioritised by the housing enforcement team.

 

The idea with the civil penalties was that the Local Authority could use the money to fund more enforcement and it was suggested that there could be a report at a future meeting that indicated how many penalties had been issued and how many had been collected as it was believed there was an issue with not being able to collect. 

 

The main report stated that the ambition was to deliver 600 new homes over next 10 years and appendix A gave a target of 980.  It was clarified that the 600 were completely new homes that were not planned at that time and 380 homes were homes that the council currently held and had a plan for them which made 980.

 

Savings that were made and could be made in the future the committee were informed that there had been reduction in bed and breakfast use which was the real pinch point for the budget cost and the cost to those who were in temporary accommodation.  The Bed and breakfast budget had reduced by £700,000.00. Baseline savings had been contributed to, and grant funding was being used to deliver savings against the baseline.  The team were confident savings would be continued over the years.

 

The C1 category was good news, and it was understood it needed monitoring for continuous improvement which was ongoing. The delivery plan showed that the resident engagement strategy and surveys slipped.  There was a concern that would impact on a potential future in the future.  The committee were informed that there was a five year plan being put together for BCP homes which would be one overarching document.  Also, it would include future projections and delivery and support of communities.

 

The Director of Housing stated pride in the team and where they were.  The Housing Strategy was a moment that was exciting and ambitious in terms of need.  The team were thanked for their work.

 

The Chair stated they were really pleased with the direction it had gone in during their time in BCP and what a good news story it was.

 

RESOLVED that

Environment and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee; 

      i.          Note the progress, achievements and challenges set out in this report. 

 

Voting: Unanimous