625 Draft Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2020 -2025 PDF 118 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Councillor Whitehead introduced
the item noting that the report provided an overview of the draft
Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2020-2025, which set out the
vision for the Council’s role in addressing housing supply,
homelessness, standards and health and wellbeing.
The following Members spoke
under Council Procedure 20.1:
Councillor Whitehead proposed,
Councillor Yates seconded and Cabinet agreed that:
1. The draft Housing
and Homelessness Strategy 2020-2025, attached at annex 1, be
approved for public consultation.
2. The draft Housing
and Homelessness Strategy 2025 be referred to full council for
adoption, following consultation, including any amendments required
as a result of the consultation.
210 Draft Housing Strategy 2020-2025 PDF 289 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Councillor
Whitehead, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing and Safer
Neighbourhoods introduced the item for debate and thanked the
Housing team staff for the thought and care they put into producing
the proposed housing strategy. The strategy was evidence of the
council’s commitment to local residents.
Mr Porter, Head of
Service for Housing and Planning made additional introductory
comments as follows:
-
The purpose of the strategy was clear in the
document. There was a need to get input from partner organisations
as they had a key role to play in providing appropriate housing for
Thanet;
-
The proposed strategy included the content on the
statutory homelessness strategy in order to provide a cohesive
housing policy for the district;
-
The Local Plan set out the housing numbers required
and it was currently a great challenge to work towards meeting
those targets. Currently the council was at a third of the required
housing supply;
-
The district was faced with viability challenges to
do with new build property and these challenges contributed to
homelessness;
-
Households on low income were increasingly living in
low quality housing;
-
Private rented housing had doubled to 26% of the
local housing market over the past 15 years;
-
Older population had also increased over the years
and the council had to provide appropriate housing for
them;
-
The proposed strategy was still in draft stage and
would be amended as it went through the decision making process up
to the point it was adopted by Full Council in February/March
2020.
Councillor Stuart
Piper and Councillor Bailey spoke under Council Procedure
201.
Members responded by
making comments and asking questions as detailed below:
-
They were satisfied with the holistic approach to
providing housing in the district;
-
There was little detail about protecting green
wedges and the environment;
-
There were significant differences between
allowances paid in Thanet as compared to the national average.
There was a need to address this anomaly to bring the level of
allowances in line with actual costs for housing rent
costs;
-
Would the council consider supplying prefabricated
housing in Thanet as these would be quick to put up;
-
This was an ambitious plan. There were problems
regarding monitoring the private sector housing provision. How was
the council going to monitor the quality of housing in the private
sector?
-
Did residents living in private rented housing know
how to access council services if they needed help with poor
conditions on their privately rented accommodation?
-
When providing housing to young people,
consideration should be given to those young people who may not be
on the housing list but may face housing need after falling out
with their parents. These young people usually found it difficult
to get housing assistance from the council.
Mr Porter responded
as follows:
-
Issues regarding the environmental impact and land
use would be covered in the Local Plan; Housing development would
on the other hand require building consent and the issue would be
how housing structures could be designed to maximise thermal
efficiency and reduce ...
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