Meeting documents

Councillor Winn

Cabinet Member for Communities

To consider the attached report.

Council received a report that had been submitted to the Environment and Living Scrutiny Committee on 25 September, 2018, and to Cabinet on 20 November, 2018, seeking approval for the adoption of the draft Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022.  The minutes of those meetings were attached as Appendices 2 and 3 respectively to the Council report.  Both meetings had been supportive of the draft strategy.

Local authorities had a statutory requirement under the Homelessness Act 2002 to produce a Homelessness Review and Strategy outlining the main causes of homelessness in their area and the strategic plans and actions in place to tackle them.  As a minimum requirement, the strategy should be revised and rewritten every five years.

The current strategy was due to expire this year and the new Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022 (the Strategy) had been produced, following a review of the housing and homelessness needs of residents within the Vale.  It outlined the Council’s plan on addressing these needs for the next three years.

The Strategy had been created by a working group made up of internal officers and representatives from local partners – the Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust, Aylesbury Homeless Action Group, Connection Support and the Heart of Bucks.  Details of the research and customer insight undertaken to inform the Strategy were included in the Council report.

Since the draft Strategy had been published for public consultation, Universal Credit had been rolled out in the Vale and the Rough Sleeper Initiative had been implemented across the country in conjunction with the Governments target’s to reduce Rough Sleeping.  The draft Strategy had been updated, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Communities, to reflect this.

Since the last Homelessness Review, changes in both local and central government legislation and policy had impacted significantly on the approach taken by local authorities to preventing and dealing with homelessness.  Official statistics continued to show a worrying upward trend nationally, with the number of homelessness acceptances and  rough sleepers rising year on year since 2014.

As Aylesbury Vale’s population continued to rise, so did house prices and private rents.  However, the Vale had also had the third highest increase in its housing stock throughout England over the last five years (source ONS 2017) and had the highest ratio of housing delivery to existing housing stock of any authority in the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Corridor.  This stock increase included the delivery of 1,546 affordable homes between 2013 and 2018.

There had been a 25% increased in the number of applicants found as unintentionally homeless and in priority need since 2013, with the biggest rise being in families with dependant children.  The most common reason for people losing their home was the loss of a tenancy.  However, AVDC’s housing staff had been extremely effective over the last few years in preventing homelessness, with 1,674 households prevented from becoming homeless between 2013 and 2017

Compared to the national picture and in general, Aylesbury Vale’s homelessness figures were relatively low, although the rough sleeping rate for 2017 (per 1,000 households) was 0.26, marginally higher than national average of 0.20.

The strategic vision was to ensure that those who wanted to make the Vale their home were supported to do so.  In order to achieve this, the following 4 priorities had been agreed:

·                     Strategic Priority 1 – Prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping.

·                     Strategic Priority 2 – Continue to facilitate and maximise the supply of affordable housing.

·                     Strategic Priority 3 – Respond to the ongoing challenges of welfare reform.

·                     Strategic Priority 4 – Contribute to the improvement of health and wellbeing services for people at risk of homelessness.

The Strategy Action Plan, which formed an evolving part of the strategy, set out what would be done to achieve the priorities.  It would act as a health check on the effective delivery of the service and would be updated quarterly on the AVDC website once it was live.

Following an analysis of the consultation responses by the working group, the final draft of the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019 - 2022 had been produced and was attached as Appendix 1 to the Council report.  The action plan would be owned by the Homelessness Prevention Forum – some ownership had already been established in some key areas whilst others would be updated in early 2019.

It was proposed by the Cabinet Member for Communities (Councillor Winn) and seconded by Councillor Bowles:-

(1)          That the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022 be adopted for inclusion in the Council’s Policy Framework.

(2)          That authority be delegated to the Assistant Director for Customer Fulfilment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Communities, to make any necessary minor amendments to the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022 as may be required.

It was thereupon proposed by Councillor Bateman and seconded by Councillor Stuchbury that recommendation (1) be amended by the addition of the following:-

(a)          "That this Council will monitor the causes of homelessness within the Vale carefully, and specifically any increases in homelessness which are directly caused by or linked to Universal Credit.

(b)          That in applying development plan policy in planning decisions the Council will seek to achieve the maximum level of affordable housing taking into account suitable local evidence where available.

(c)          That the Council will seek to justify the highest level of affordable housing possible in future plans utilising all available local evidence."

During debate, the Cabinet Member for Communities informed the mover and seconder of the amendment that he was happy to accept that AVDC would continue to monitor the causes of homelessness within the Vale carefully, and specifically any increases in homelessness that were caused by or linked to the roll out of Universal Credit.

The Cabinet Member also stated that he was happy to give an undertaking that if there were opportunities that came forward in a particular development to build a higher level of affordable housing, the Council would consider them.

On the basis of these undertakings, and with the agreement of the mover and seconder of the amendment, and of Council, the amendment was withdrawn.

Following further debate, it was,

RESOLVED –

(1)          That the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022 be adopted for inclusion in the Council’s Policy Framework.

(2)          That authority be delegated to the Assistant Director for Customer Fulfilment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Communities, to make any necessary minor amendments to the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022 as may be required.