Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Housing

The Cabinet Member Housing introduced the report, thanking officers for their hard work in putting it together. The strategy set out their vision and priorities in order to achieve four key outcomes, namely increasing the provision of affordable housing; making best use of existing housing and improving our neighbourhoods, tackling homelessness and rough sleeping; and improving the health and wellbeing of our communities. The strategy was originally approved by Cabinet in July 2018, and was a living document that was updated annually to reflect changing challenges and opportunities. This report sought to review the most notable achievements and look forward to the future.

71 new affordable homes had been provided during 2021/22, 69% of which were delivered over and above what would have been delivered through market forces alone. They were continuing to identify new sites for more CBC-owned affordable housing and had a strong pipeline of 366 affordable homes. That figure would continue to improve, and she was confident they would reach their pipeline target of 500 affordable homes by the end of the year. They were expecting to allocate approximately £17m from the Housing Revenue Account on new affordable homes for the period 2022/23, and were projecting further investment of c.£50m over the following 2 years to March 2025. This was in addition to the Golden Valley Development in West Cheltenham, which would see the provision of over 3,000 new homes, 35% of which would be affordable.

This increase in the delivery of affordable housing in Cheltenham was part of a wider £180m housing investment plan. As part of this plan, CBH had acquired, refurbished and let 13 high quality homes in the private rented sector at St George’s Place in the town centre. They were also investing in new net zero carbon homes, with planning permission now granted at 320 Swindon Road for 24 highly energy efficient new homes.

In addition to this, they had improved the safety of more than 847 households in the private sector in Cheltenham, while three long term empty homes had also been brought back into use. Due to recent organisational improvements, the council was in a better position to explore options for the use of Compulsory Purchase Orders, with the aim of bringing the most difficult properties back into use. Through the Warm & Well scheme, which provided provides free, impartial home energy efficiency advice to fight fuel poverty, they had undertaken 88 energy efficiency measures across 70 properties in Cheltenham, leading to estimated lifetime savings of 1,871 tonnes of carbon, and reductions in energy bills.

Despite the significant impact of the pandemic on the sector, CBH had also ensured that their replacement doors and window programme would be completed by March 2023. Improvement so far had contributed to a further uplift in the SAP rating of their homes to 73.02, compared with 72.02 in 2019, and exceeding the average SAP rating of 69 for local authority housing stock. CBC (via CBH) also secured approximately £780k grant following a successful bid earlier this year to Wave 1 of the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator Project, and helped 26 households to downsize from family-sized CBC accommodation via Cheltenham’s Help to Move Scheme. In total, 30 unused bedrooms had been freed up for larger families under this initiative.

She continued by highlighting the topics of homelessness and of rough sleeping. Cheltenham was proud to be a town of sanctuary, and continued to resource all that was necessary to help displaced families from Afghanistan and the Ukraine to feel welcomed and settled in their new homes and communities. The measures required to end rough sleeping were complex, and required significant collaboration with partners across the county. Over the past 12 months, they had reviewed and strengthened their partnership arrangements, with Cheltenham’s Housing Strategy & Partnership Manager now leading the county-wide Programme Management Partnership, involving District Authorities, the County Council, the Police and Crime Commissioner and Health. This partnership was responsible for the commissioning, monitoring and review of all jointly-commissioned rough sleeping services.

This year, the government had announced there would be a three year funding bid opportunity to support the delivery of rough sleeping services from July 2022. Districts from across the county had submitted a joint bid for approximately £2.9m. If successful, this funding would enable key services for rough sleepers to be commissioned across the county through to March 2025, providing much-needed certainty for commissioners and providers alike. In 2021/22 there were 216 households whose homelessness was either prevented or relieved, compared with 145 households during 2017/1, prior to the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act and CBC’s Housing, Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy. Cheltenham’s Housing Options Service was one of the few homelessness services that also included a much-valued Benefits and Money Adviser. During the last 12 months alone, CBC’s adviser had generated an additional £1.4m for low-income households in Cheltenham. This year, they had also recommissioned the Advice and Inclusion Service, which began providing debt, benefits, financial inclusion and housing rights advice to Cheltenham residents on behalf of CBC from April 2022.

Finally, she highlighted the actions taken to improve the health and wellbeing of communities, including tackling antisocial behaviour (ASB). CBC had successfully resolved all 68 cases of ASB during 2021/22, while CBH’s Employment Initiatives Service had enabled 127 people to access training locally and helped a further 93 people into work. A new Home-Sharing Scheme bringing together older people with spare rooms and people in need of affordable accommodation was being supported with their Health and Social Care partners. They were also continuing to invest in Cheltenham’s park homes and had insulated a further 24 park homes this year. CBC’s Lifeline Alarm service had carried out 173 new installations over the last 12 months, taking the total number of customers to 1,036 across Cheltenham. 64 Disabled Facilities Grants had supported major adaptations to people’s homes, plus a further 10 discretionary grants which had enabled disabled or frail people to remain in their homes. Appendix 2 of the report provided a detailed breakdown of the range of activities that would be undertaken during 2022/23 and beyond in order to support the strategy.

The Cabinet Member Finance and Assets was impressed by the huge volume of activity taking place behind the scenes to tackle housing and homelessness issues. The report demonstrated the value of partnership working, and the need for it to continue. He placed on record his thanks to all the partners and organisations involved.

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

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    The Housing, Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy Action Plan Update for 2022 be approved.