Agenda item

L Warden introduced the Homes for the Future Housing Strategy 2019-2022 and asked Committee for any questions.

Cllr England mentioned it was a good coherent document but in light of the climate emergency motion there is nothing included about climate emergency, perhaps commitment 3 could be slightly adapted to accommodate that.  L Warden confirmed that we have been having discussions at the moment in relation to what we as a Council can do to move forward to address some of the issues with the climate emergency.  In particular in Housing there is a few key areas in relation to materials that used, how we look at new developments, etc.  There is definitely elements as part of this which will take that into account, and those will probably come through some of the other strategies, but we can definitely have a look at this and see if there are elements that could be included. 

Cllr Griffiths mentioned that it would probably be more in the repairs and maintenance and new build policies, as you know we have done Summer Court, the biomass conversion of the boilers, solar panels that we are putting in, the extra insulation or cladding for various homes across the borough.  It is something that the department is very conscious of and something that we are working on, but it’s like a lot of other things, it has to be fed into the complete mix to give a complete picture, rather than just going off on a different tangent. 

Cllr Hollinghurst asked in considering our Housing Strategy have we given any thought to accessibility to the houses, from the houses and services and would that be reflected in specific proposals to support public transport.  L Warden said that one of the key commitments is managing disabled adaptations, that’s the physical getting in and out of the property, and asked if Cllr Hollinghurst was talking about the wider infrastructure.  Cllr Hollinghurst said the wider infrastructure.  L Warden confirmed this was planning, when we are looking at new developments we work very closely with the Planning team in relation to accessibility, it’s not something that we specifically focus on in housing, that tends to be more the planning and community services.  The focus tends to be the services within the estates and in particular the physical aspects of the homes and the tenants that live in them.  Cllr Hollinghurst said that in Aylesbury they have put a lot effort into this with bus networks and the Silver Rider etc where you have access of buses into the estates, which doesn’t allow for other traffic and they are very popular.

Cllr Griffiths mentioned that the Aylesbury Plan, that is really what’s forecast, that sort of connections, for the new Community Gardens Plan in the distant future, but on the scale of developments that were doing and our housing stock, we do not have the concentration or the money to do that side of things. 

Cllr Bassadone advised that it was a very interesting strategy and had one comment, that has been said before at this Committee, and that it would be rather nice to have a paper one, that we could actually keep and look forward, because in a couple of years time, trying to go back and find things out.  L Warden said that we do publish all of our strategies and policies, there’s one page on the housing part of the website, so if there are any policies that come through here, then you can find those quite quickly.  The Chairman added that anything that isn’t part two is on the public website.

Cllr England asked why the previous five year strategy was replaced with a three year strategy.  Cllr Griffiths replied that time is moving so fast now, technology is moving so fast and perhaps a five year timescale is quite a long time for a plan.  We were having to review it anyway because the law was changing or the world was moving on, look at all the different changes there have already been in climate change, building regs change, etc.  We were reviewing these every so often, it’s just one of those ones that have changed so much that perhaps three years is okay, we might get to three years and we won’t need to change so much, so the next one could be five years or a year because so much has changed.  As far as I know that’s the main reason.  L Warden said that in the last three years we’ve had Grenfell and rent restructuring, so there’s quite a few significant changes that have had an impact on housing so the decision was that three years allows us to identify what might be happening over the next three years and make sure that we have something fit for purpose in three years time to tackle whatever challenges have come up.

Cllr Adeleke advised he wanted to support what Cllr Griffiths said, that gone are the days when companies used to have long term plans, that is no longer applicable, everything is now short term, 12 months or 24 months. 

Cllr Johnson questioned the sheltered housing scheme that are currently undergoing review and asked if there are any timescales, it also mentions options for future investment or use and wondered what options are being considered.  L Warden said that we have identified as part of the void process that we had a number of sheltered schemes less desirable than previously had been.  Over the last few months we have had a project group creating an action plan around a number of different elements of reviewing our sheltered housing.  One of those is focussing on the physical structure of the schemes, we had a consultant do a stock condition survey and provide information more around feasibility of the schemes, looking at the rent levels, available land around, the demand and access to services and we are currently compiling our own information around tenants satisfaction, voids and lettings to combine together to give a rating of which schemes actually are spot on exactly as they are, which we maybe need to do some minor work to refurbishment which might need major works and actually which ones are not quite as feasible anymore and we need to rethink the options for those.  In addition to that we have been working closely with Hertfordshire County Council with a Dacorum Supported Housing Board looking at supported housing over the next 10 years and they’ve set a number of areas to focus on, where they think we’ve got an ageing population, we need more flexi-care and we have been talking to them about what the demand is likely to look like in Dacorum, trying to move ourselves forwards so that we are preparing for that in relation to any new schemes and which locations might need to be in.  Currently there is a lot of work going on with that, and we are also reviewing some other things with the allocations policy, for example we currently have some limits around how much savings you can have before you are allocated supported housing property and just reviewing whether those limits are correct or whether we should be increasing those.  There is a number different actions at the moment and we have supported housing on the next agenda in October, Oliver Jackson will be attending to talk more about the schemes, what work they are doing at the moment and how we are moving forward.