Agenda item

Councillor Donald Nannestad, Portfolio Holder for Quality Housing:

a)    presented a report to Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee covering the following main areas:

·       Homelessness

·       Tenancy Services

·       Voids

·       Housing Repairs

·       Housing Investment

·       New Build

·       Decarbonisation

·       Lincare Control Centre

b)    highlighted that some areas were performing better than others, however, even those areas recorded as ‘red’ were showing as good performance when compared to other authorities, with all areas up and down the country facing the same problems

c)    invited questions and comments from Members of the Committee

Members of Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee considered the content of the report in further detail. Comments and questions were responded to by the Portfolio Holder for Quality Housing and officers as follows:

Question: It was stated that 20% of new build properties within the Western Growth Corridor (WGC) development would be affordable homes and managed by social housing regulators. Were all new builds going to be affordable housing?

Response: The type of new build housing was dependent on the purpose for which finance was awarded to us by Homes England. If more funding was given for social housing then we would consider if there was opportunity to deliver a higher percentage of affordable or social homes. Affordable Housing products included affordable rented, shared ownership, first homes and some supported accommodation. These could be delivered by a registered provider and Local Housing Authority. The site at WGC was to be a mixed tenure site with market housing also captured within the development.

Question: Would new tenants living in old council stock still be classed as affordable housing tenants? Many would not be able to stretch to affordable housing rents. How would this be managed?

Response: There were no current plans to convert existing social rented tenants over to affordable rents. However, if a tenant moved they would sign up to the terms of the property they were signing for. For example if this was an affordable rented property, this would be the terms and this communicated to them. Financial assessments on affordability took place before the tenant signed up to the terms of the tenancy.

Question: Was the way forward that if a person was already a tenant and moved house, their payments were set at affordable rent and not social housing rent?

Response: A blanket approach did not exist, it would all depend on the property they were moving to and how and when this had been purchased/built. For example new builds were often funded via the affordable homes programme and let at affordable rent, whereas if someone was moving to a house which had been a council property long term these would normally remain as social rents. When purchasing properties or building new homes, the financial viability was also dependent on government intervention rates, for example better intervention rates from government to deliver more social rents could help the Housing Authority determine the rent type and if we were to introduce social rents rather than affordable rent again in the future. The housing authority could not operate at a loss and needed to ensure the rents and intervention rates covered costs incurred and likely to be incurred for ongoing future maintenance.

Comment: There could be a situation whereby affordable rent was applied to one house whilst the house next door paid social housing rent.

Response: Transparency came into action through the Joint Homefinder Scheme. A prospective tenant had the choice whether or not to bid on an affordable property. There were of course safeguards built into the system to ensure people were financially able to afford prospective bids.

Comment: Western Growth Corridor (WGC) land owned and sold to contractors for social housing would now be used for affordable housing.

Response: There had been no sale, there had been a land swap. The first 52 WGC homes would not be affordable, they were mainly on Housing Revenue Account (HRA) land and received funding from Homes England. There had to be a mix of homes built in order to make the scheme financially viable.

Question: Was the 38 day performance target for voids achievable?

Response: This was dependent on the condition of the properties when they became available for re-let. It was becoming increasingly difficult to meet the targets due to the availability/cost of labour and materials. There had unfortunately been a large number of deaths in our properties, which resulted in access to the properties being delayed for legal reasons. It was more realistic to increase the number of days than to set unmanageable targets.

Question: It was understood that it was written into the Tenancy Agreement  that officers would access council homes once a year for inspection, although this hadn’t been universally applied. A record of how many visits we made to each property for whatever reason would be beneficial, also to make tenants aware of their responsibilities.

Response: Some tenants had lived in the same property for many years and did not welcome improvement works to their homes. We now had a new Tenancy Services Manager in post committed to spending more time on property inspections. There was more that we could and wanted to do here. Those properties that hadn’t reported repairs for more than 10 years would be targeted first as most at risk.

Question: At the last Voids meeting the performance target had been increased by 3 days and the reason for this action was understood. Was there anything that could be put in place to avoid hoarding in council properties and improve the way that a minority of people lived?

Response: Pre-tenancy support was an important factor here. We also needed to improve our recharging regime for damage caused and the bad state of repair that some properties were vacated in. There may be a need to temporarily put a hold on ‘transfers’ to reduce the number of void properties at any one time.

Question: Had building work commenced yet on Garfield Close?

Response: The date was moving forward. Queen Elizabeth Road was one of the earlier developments being planned for the housing pipeline, hopefully starting in 2025-26. A report on the housing pipeline was due to be presented to Executive which set out the Council’s anticipated sites and potential delivery timescales.

Question: The number of properties having a valid gas safety certificate at 98..29% was very high, however, the 93 homes that did not have one also seemed high in terms of fire risks?

Response: The figures were comparable to other areas. The problem was in gaining access to some properties.

Question: It was now a year since Ward Paddock had been built. Had snagging issues been addressed at a reasonable settlement to the council?

Response: Officers were in discussions with the developer to look at any defects. A list of liable work to be completed by the developer was being established. All this work was documented.

Question: Would temporary homes be introduced to help deal with the influx of people at RAF Scampton requiring accommodation?

Response: This was very early days and the impact was unknown until the site was operational.  If people secured rights to remain it was believed through historic information from other similar schemes that they relocated/settled to where friends or family lived in larger conurbations and not necessarily local areas. This would be monitored once this site was fully in operation to understand the impact to City of Lincoln Council (CoLC).

Response by LTP Chair: It needed to be placed on record that 85% of tenants were very responsible people. There were 15% of properties with issues and we were working to alleviate these problems.

RESOLVED that the report be noted with thanks.