Agenda item

Housing Development Programme

Minutes:

Members received the report of the Executive Director which advised how the Council could directly intervene in the housing market, as a developer, to accelerate housing delivery and increase overall housing supply.

 

The target set out in the adopted Local Plan Core Strategy was for 335 dwellings per annum from 2011-2028.  However, the average delivery rate of housing completions equated to only 198 dwellings per annum since 2011.  This meant that the Council needed to deliver 458 homes a year (over 4,100 homes in total) between the current time and the end of the plan period. 

 

Following the work of the Housing Task and Finish Group (HT&FG) in 2018, the Housing, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (HHRSS) was developed and adopted by Council on 19 February 2019.

 

The HHRSS ‘Improvement Delivery Plan’ (IDP) listed ‘Increasing the Supply of Housing’ as its first priority.  The report outlined the actions necessary to meet objective 1.1 of the delivery plan and in line with the HT&FG recommendations, which provided Members with an opportunity to consider and make recommendations to Cabinet in regard to a Council led housing development programme.

 

The IDP was broad in its ambition, suggesting that the Council should be looking to increase supply across the board inclusive of all tenures of housing.  Whilst this could be achieved in a variety of ways, the Council, as a developer, had to have a very clear vision of which objectives it was choosing to prioritise.

 

The scale of the Council’s ambition needed to be realistic and achievable. Starting from a position of nil development, the Council expected to see starts on site by 2022 with the first units completed in 2023, if sufficient resources were allocated to the programme in the 2019/20 financial year.  A 15 year development programme up to 2035 could realistically target delivery of 1,000 homes.

 

During the discussion the following points were noted:

 

·       Members suggested the use of modular housing for temporary accommodation;

·       Members were keen to look at how Eastbourne Borough Council, Hastings Borough Council and Wealden District Council had established their board structures, their reasons why and any lessons learnt, when establishing the Local Housing Company Board; and

·       £60,000/year to appoint a Housing Development Programme Manager, to be met through the Medium Term Financial Plan Reserves may need to increase.

 

RESOLVED: That Cabinet be requested to recommend to Council that:

 

1)    a Local Housing Company be established with the Board structure outlined at Option 2 on Appendix 4 to the report subject to further research into examples of board structures used by Eastbourne Borough Council, Hastings Borough Council, Wealden District Council and any other best practice Councils and a budget of £30,000 be allocated from earmarked reserves to undertake this;

 

2)    a £200m Housing Development Programme to be delivered by the Local Housing Company be approved and financially supported by the Council;

 

3)    the Programme aims to complete up to 1,000 new homes by 2035, with the primary objective being to increase and accelerate the overall delivery of housing in the district;

 

4)    the Programme seeks to deliver mixed tenure developments in accordance with Local Plan and Housing Policy;

 

5)    the Local Housing Company to be financially supported to purchase land on which to develop new homes, accessing borrowing to do so;

 

6)    the Local Housing Company will sell the market housing through direct marketing and should seek to sell the affordable element on each scheme to a local registered provider; and

 

7)    provision of sufficient additional resource is made through the Medium Term Financial Strategy Reserves for the development and delivery of the Housing Development Programme, including £60,000/year to appoint a Housing Development Programme Manager in the first instance.

 

 

Supporting documents: