Agenda item

ITEM - HOUSING STRATEGY OVERVIEW

To receive an overview from Councillor McWilliams.

Minutes:

Councillor McWilliams informed the Forum that RBWM was putting together its first comprehensive Housing Strategy which picked up on many different areas. The three key areas were properties of delivering new homes, supporting health and wellbeing and delivering homes that support our vulnerable people. Councillor McWilliams continued to give the bigger picture before Tracey Hendren gave a presentation to the Forum. Councillor McWilliams reminded the Forum of the headlines three years ago and commented that the service had improved massively. It is expected that developer partners take the strategy into account when bringing forward any applications and it sets out some really clear priorities for the kind of homes and the kind of places that the council would like to deliver. Councillor McWilliams commented that the Chair and Vice Chair had met with the developers and it had been a very successful meeting.

 

Tracey Hendren, Head of Housing and Environmental Health, gave a presentation to the Forum. (Presentation attached).

 

The Chairman asked how many flats in the centre of Maidenhead would be available for social housing? Councillor McWilliams responded that for St Clouds Way, the shared ownership was 30% that was being proposed and he thought for York Road it was 40 or 45% which included socially rented units. Councillor McWilliams offered to find out and inform the Forum.

 

ACTION: Councillor McWilliams to inform Forum of exact number of social housing in the new developments.

 

Councillor McWilliams continued to inform the Forum that an important point to note was that the schemes were planned when the borough’s focus was on shared ownership and Section 106 and affordable housing commitments, and whilst this was still the focus, it was an important part of negotiations with development partners that the housing strategy explicitly states the ambition to deliver on the objectively obsessed need which was a hugely ambitious undertaking because delivering that number of socially rented units was very difficult because of many reasons related to the current system of development in this country.

 

Lisa Hughes thanked both Councillor Mc Williams and Tracey Hendren. Lisa Hughes asked if the housing register mentioned captured the number of people requesting accommodation who had disabilities or some kind of impairment that would affect their housing need. Tracey Hendren commented that specific questions around what disabilities impact on the household so that the more generic medical conditions could be captured.

 

Lisa Hughes asked if the registered housing providers such as Housing Solutions and their approach or the RBWM strategy to target them towards building accessible homes and by that Lisa Hughes did not just mean mandatory as these were just for visiting. Lisa Hughes asked for more information on this. Councillor McWilliams commented that the Strategy include a key commitment to working with the registered providers to drive up customer service and customer satisfaction numbers both for tenants and also leaseholders. This is going to be achieved by ensuring that the relationships are more formalised and working more strategically.

 

Lisa Hughes also asked how RBWM supports both tenants of private rented accommodation but also landlords that are happy to make changes but could not fund them. Tracey Hendren commented that the disabled facilities grant was available for private properties, but permission was needed from the private landlord. The borough were going to adopt a landlords forum which would enable the borough to ask landlords of what the challenges were and work with them to embrace a joint approach.

 

Councillor Baldwin asked for commitments 11 and 22 to be sent to him as he thought here was a conflict between planning policy and housing policy. He would take this matter offline.

 

ACTION: Keep on agenda and invite both Councillor McWilliams and Tracey Hendren to next meeting.