Agenda item

To consider the report of the head of development and housing (attached).

Councillor Elaine Ware, the Cabinet portfolio holder, introduced the item. She offered her apologies if the Committee were expecting a strategy that covered all aspects of housing. This strategy aimed to deal with the challenge of delivering new build properties. Following the concerns raised by the Scrutiny Committee Chair, Councillor Ware proposed that the title of the report be amended to read “Housing Delivery Strategy” and that paragraph 17 be deleted.

Other areas of housing related work were covered by separate strategies, policies and procedures. There was a separate Homelessness Strategy and document for temporary accommodation provision, which fell under the remit of the development and housing services; and matters relating to Disabled Facilities Grants, energy efficiency and the private housing sector were covered by the environmental health team. The planning department also had responsibilities for the delivery of housing.

A Housing Delivery Strategy was a key document for councils – underpinning corporate goals and providing clarity on the councils’ priorities for housing delivery, which was particularly important given the task of delivering challenging numbers of new homes. This was a high-level document setting out the direction of travel over the next ten years that would enable the councils to take a proactive approach in driving the delivery of housing.

This approach was not just about accelerating the delivery of a certain number of homes, but was centred on developing the role of “Housing Delivery Enabler” which would put greater emphasis on delivering the right types of homes, in the right area and to required standards, seeking out new opportunities and partnerships and finding solutions to problems impacting on development progress. 

Of particular importance, was the need to develop much of the future housing in partnership with local people, - chiefly in coordination with Neighbourhood Plans, but also through capturing the capacity for innovation, opportunity and passion that existed in other parts of our district community – including local major employers, community land trusts etc.

The Strategy would support other important planning and housing documents such as the Homelessness Strategy, temporary accommodation provision, the Local Plan and the future development of the Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document.

As this was a high-level document, it did not include specific detail, but provided an action plan of intention and initiatives to be built up over a ten year period, leaving the councils far better able to influence and direct the type of housing development that supported opportunities for current and future residents, employment, leisure and education.  

The committee raised its concern that this joint strategy had come separately to South and Vale Scrutiny Committees and wanted to ensure that in future these joint strategies would come to the Joint Scrutiny Committee.

The purpose of the strategy is to get deliverability and it is important whatever the Strategic Housing Market Assessment numbers are. The action plan is about delivery rather than absolute numbers.

The committee noted that paragraph 17 of the Interim Head of Housing’s report would be removed from the Strategy, but that the work it mentioned, would need to be done elsewhere:

“Because the strategy is focussed on delivering the councils’ significant new-build housing targets, this Joint Housing Strategy does not address other aspects of housing provision that are sometimes included in other Local Authority Housing Strategies, such as raising quality of existing private sector housing stock, providing disabled facilities grants to improve accessibility of existing housing etc. which are addressed by South and Vale’s Environmental Health Service”

This strategy is about delivering the housing numbers but also about delivering the type of housing which is actually needed in the local area.

A detailed action plan would be implemented following the adoption of the Strategy which would add further details.

RESOLVED to:

a)     commend the strategy to Cabinet, together with the comments of the members of the committee as part of the consultation process;

b)     send the comments of Vale Scrutiny Committee to South Cabinet as part of the consultation process as it is a joint strategy;

c)     recommend that the Strategy is updated and comes back to Scrutiny Committee for review in the light of any major infrastructure projects such as the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway and the possible reservoir;

d)     request that the Action Plan should come back to Scrutiny Committee on an annual basis, to keep the committee abreast of progress;

e)     request that joint strategies come to the Joint Scrutiny Committee in future;

f)      add the Joint Housing Delivery Strategy to the Corporate Plan.