Agenda item

To consider the performance report and make any observations or recommendations as appropriate.  For the section on Housing Delivery & Communities, please see pages 37-43 of the agenda pack and for Housing Operations, please see pages 43-47.  This agenda item will be led by the Head of Housing Delivery and Communities and the Service Improvement Manager.

The Head of Housing Delivery and Communities stated that commuted sums funding collected under Section 106 agreements had been used to subsidise two homes in Cranleigh, allowing them to be let at social rents. 

The Next Steps Accommodation Programme (NSAP) modular homes project providing temporary accommodation would be part funded by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Council through commuted sums. A contractor had been identified.  Another bidding round housing for homeless households would be introduced early in 2021. 

Turning to the Private Sector Housing adaptations work, applications for grants were being received again having tailed off due to the pandemic.   One reason had been that surveyors could not enter homes.  A new officer had been appointed to promote Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) and ensure that the money was spent.  The team were also working on trying to bring empty homes back into use.

The Head of Housing Delivery and Communities explained that the Council had a duty to arrange funerals for people who had no one else to do so.

The new Housing Strategy would be a major item of work for the service.  The Government had introduced “affordable rent” and this was actually very hard for many people to afford.  Work was being undertaken on setting a “Waverley Rent” priced somewhere between social rent and affordable rent.  The Head of Housing Delivery and Communities would bring the draft Strategy to a future Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee. 

The Committee were very pleased that homeless numbers were so low.  They felt it was a fantastic achievement that the Council had prevented or relieved homelessness for 73 households in a quarter.

It was commented that in future it would not be possible to build houses with gas central heating and that a Task and Finish group were looking into housing design standards.  The Asset Manager commented that heating was the area where reduction could take place.  It was stated that the Task and Finish group would be able to have an input into elements of the designs at the Ockford Ridge development.

Councillors asked for further information regarding the two off target service plan actions.  The Service Improvement Manager stated that she aimed for the work on complaints and communal areas to be completed by the end of March 2021.

The Service Improvement Manager presented the report and stated that the service had had to adapt to Covid such as detailed above regarding the work with the Tenants’ Panel.

The Government had published a clear Charter for Social Housing Residents.

The Service Improvement Manager noted that the service had failed to meet its performance targets due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  It was felt that a rent target of 1% was more realistic for 2021/22.

The Committee had requested more information regarding responsive repairs.  The report shared information on the number of jobs and complaints. 

In future the service proposed to report on the average number of days taken to complete repairs and the number of repairs over 28 days.

There were 35-40 empty homes in January 2021.  Part of the backlog had been caused by the fact that people had been unable to travel during the pandemic in order to clear deceased relatives’ homes.  It was estimated that it would take a year from the start of the pandemic to get back to normal.

The Housing Delivery Manager noted that they were looking into the biodiversity of larger sites such as Ockford Ridge Site B.