Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member Housing

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    The Housing, Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy Action Plan Update for 2020 be approved.

The Cabinet Member Housing presented the report, noting that the Housing & Homelessness Strategy document, which was approved in 2018, remained a living document and was reviewed yearly.

He outlined the priorities and visions of the 2020 update, which included the council’s £100m commitment to providing 500 new affordable homes, and the potential of the West Cheltenham Cyber Central plan to provide up to 2,000 new homes. He added that the council had made good use of existing accommodation by helping more than 20 households to downsize, by bringing empty homes back into use and by making more than 900 private sector homes safer.

A further key goal was to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness in general, with the result being that 394 households were prevented from rough sleeping – which also produced £1.5m income that these households did not realise they were entitled to. £1m funding was secured for rough sleeping, enabled them to continue providing emergency provision, while £44,000 was also secured in order to fund a new domestic abuse support officer role, as mentioned at the last Cabinet meeting.

The final key outcome was improving the health and wellbeing of communities, and he praised CBH and external partners for their work in setting up 1,800 community project activities – which, with some 4,000 volunteer hours put in, generated an estimated £10m in social value. He added that in the last year, 120 antisocial behaviour cases had been resolved, while 221 new lifelines were installed for vulnerable residents. He concluded that it had been a busy year, and he was pleased to bring the plan for the forthcoming year to Cabinet.

The Cabinet Member Healthy Lifestyles heartily praised the report and those involved in supporting the most vulnerable residents. The Cabinet Member Clean and Green Environment and the Cabinet Member Finance echoed this.

The Cabinet Member Development and Safety indicated that he was impressed by the number of different strands brought together in the report, which demonstrated the breadth of positive change that the council can bring about.

The Leader noted how topical the report was, given the importance of safe and secure housing during the Covid-19 crisis, and moved to a vote, which was carried unanimously.

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    The Housing, Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy Action Plan Update for 2020 be approved.