Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Housing

The Cabinet Member Housing presented the report and noted that when an updated report or action plan was presented to Cabinet, the tracked changes would normally be the main focus. However, in this case, the amount of raw data coming from a wide variety of sources made it impossible to present the changes in this way. Instead, he sought to highlight some of the key issues.

The Housing, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2018-23 was approved by Cabinet in July 2018, and consisted of a five year strategy which set out both the council’s vision and its priorities in order to achieve the desired outcomes. During 2020/21, 80 new affordable homes were provided, while significant progress had been made to identify a wide range of sites for the potential delivery of CBC-owned affordable housing across the borough. A pipeline was in place to deliver around 371 affordable homes within 5 years from April 2021.

During the first few months of the new financial year alone, the council and CBH had already delivered 27 new affordable homes at Radford Court, Hesters Way. This was in addition to the land recently acquired at Monkscroft School (potentially delivering 70 affordable homes) and the recent acquisition of land at Swindon Road (subject to planning permission being awarded), which had the potential to provide a further 24 affordable homes.

It was expected that approximately £89m would be invested from the Housing Revenue Account on new affordable homes over 3 years to March 2024. The Cyber Park/Golden Valley development in West Cheltenham would also see the provision of up to 3,700 new homes, of which 35% would be affordable covering a variety of tenures.

He added that during the last year, nearly 300 homes in the private sector in Cheltenham had been made safer, while 13 long term empty homes were been brought back into use. CBH had completed its fire door renewal programme, installing over 6,000 new doors across properties over the last 5 years. It was anticipated that the window replacement and boiler programme would be completed during 2021/22. These improvement programmes had so far contributed to a further uplift in the SAP energy efficiency rating of their homes from 72.02 in 2019 to 72.96 in 2021. Following a funding bid to the government’s Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator Project, CBH were successful in securing a £40k grant to finance the transformation of two low energy performing homes through a ‘deep retrofit’ pilot, which should be implemented during 2021/22.

He moved onto the topic of tackling homelessness and rough sleeping, acknowledging that the Covid crisis had meant that 2020/21 was a challenging year, particularly during the first national lockdown when housing pathways were significantly reduced. During the year, CBC and CBH responded positively to the government’s ‘everyone in’ message by making 125 placements into emergency, hotel accommodation for those who were either rough sleeping or at imminent risk of rough sleeping. CBC also collaborated closely with partners across the county to bid for funding for the provision of accommodation and the joint commissioning of services for rough sleepers, including £3.8m county-wide funding from the government’s Next Steps Accommodation Programme (NSAP). This funding was going towards providing approximately 50 additional new homes in the county for rough sleepers, along with specialist support services to help with tenancy sustainment. The funding also included £24k to furnish 6 CBC homes to be made available specifically for rough sleepers with highly complex needs, and £868k funding from the government’s Rough Sleeper Initiative (RSI4), which would enable key services for rough sleepers to continue across the county between July 2021 and March 2022, specifically including the maintenance of existing Somewhere Safe to Stay Hubs in Gloucester and Cheltenham and the larger Assertive Outreach Team. There would also be a Hospital In-Reach worker to ensure rough sleepers going into hospital were not discharged onto the streets. The funding also included a £112k Enhanced Placement Fund, incorporating funding for the winter of 2021/22, to ensure that rough sleepers would always have an off the street accommodation offer.

Finally, he pointed members towards the section on improving the health and wellbeing of communities at part 2.4, and the planned next steps for the year ahead at part 3.1, and asked that members approve the recommendations.

The Cabinet Member Customer and Regulatory Services praised the report and criticised the national government’s unwillingness to tackle the homelessness crisis. The affordable homes that the council was providing would make a huge difference to people’s lives, as would the support network around them.

The Cabinet Member Finance and Assets suggested that the topic of housing and homelessness was complex and vast, but the report did a good job of covering it.

The Leader added that she was proud of how the council dealt with homelessness and how it supported people who were hard to reach. She acknowledged that some would remain homeless by choice, but they would do as much as they could to eradicate homelessness. She thanked the Cabinet Member and the officers involved for their work. The Cabinet Member Housing added his thanks to officers both at CBC and CBH.

The Leader moved to a vote, where it was unanimously:

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    The Housing, Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy Action Plan Update for 2021 be approved.