The Committee was reminded that on 21 July
2016, it had received a presentation from the Lead Cabinet Member
for Housing, setting out her responsibilities covered under the
portfolio.
At this meeting, the Lead Cabinet Member for
Housing had been invited back to provide a follow-up presentation
on her portfolio. Report No:
OAS/FH/17/018 set out the focus of the follow-up presentation,
which was to:
·
Outline the main challenges faced during the first year;
·
Outline some key successes and any failures during the first
year;
·
Set out the vision for the Portfolio through to 2019, and whether
on target to meet that vision.
Before initially opening her presentation,
Councillor Mildmay-White informed the Committee that Sara Lomax was nominated in her role of
Service Manager for Housing Options and Homelessness in which
she works closely with domestic abuse support services, supporting
victims through homelessness prevention and encouraging agencies to
work within the area. She had been at the forefront in bringing
additional support to West Suffolk through the satellite
accommodation project (which provides accommodation for
victims of domestic abuse that were not in a refuge) and
continued to bring best practice and new ideas to the area,
increasing the support the councils could offer to victims of
domestic abuse. Sara was presented with
a certificate in recognition of her work from Cllr Tony Goldson,
Chair of the Suffolk Health and Wellbeing Board.
Councillor Sara Mildmay-White then opened her
presentation by thanking the Committee for the invitation and for
its support over the past year, and provided a number of examples,
outlining challenges faced; successes and lessons learnt; and the
vision through to 2019, such as:
- Behaving more commercially due to
changes being made by Central Government (challenge)
- Bringing more empty homes back into
use (challenge)
- Introduction of the Universal Credit
full service goes live in Forest Heath and surrounding postcodes on
September 2018 (future challenge)
- Barley Homes Group Limited which had
now been incorporated (key success)
- Following a successful bid to the
DCLG, the council along with Babergh/Mid Suffolk had employed a
Rough Sleeper Outreach Prevention Worker (key success)
- Unable to meet the 30% affordable
housing on brownfield sites (less successful)
- Delayed implementation of the data
transfer to Home-link due to IT issues (less successful)
- Embedding the housing portfolio into
the council in the way it delivers its commercial work
(vision)
- Currently developing a Space
Standards to eventually become a Supplementary Planning Document
(vision)
- Barley Homes Group Limited to become
an exemplar for housing standards (vision)
Members discussed the update in detail and
asked questions of the Cabinet Member and officers, to which
comprehensive responses were provided.
In response to particular questions raised,
members were advised that:
·
Delays had occurred around the negotiation of land sales to the
Barley Homes Group Limited, but this had not impacted on the
dividend / long-term profit margins for the councils. Terms had now been agreed for three of the four
sites.
·
Suffolk County Council in co-operation of the district and
borough’s was looking again at ...
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