Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Placemaking and Housing.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Council Housebuilding, Placemaking and Local Economy.

A report updating members on how the Council Housing Delivery Programme is progressing - including first outturn updates on completed schemes, removal of certain schemes from the Programme, and other necessary decisions.

The Cabinet Member for Council House building, Placemaking, and Local Economy presented the report which provided a detailed overview of the Council’s progress towards the Corporate Delivery Plan target to deliver 3,000 Council homes for Council rent by 2031. It focused on the progress since Cabinet were last updated on the programme and requested a number of decisions.

The Cabinet Member expressed that building work had started on more than 2,000 new Council homes in the last five years. The Council were on track to finish and let 3,000 new homes by 2031.

The Cabinet Member further outlined that the new homes, the Council was delivering, were built to the highest standards of sustainability and energy efficiency. Placemaking was central to the Council’s approach, and the new homes were bringing real improvements to their areas - including through new facilities and green spaces that contributed greater biodiversity into the city. The Council were designing these new homes to meet the individual needs of a wide range of people.

The Cabinet placed on record their appreciation and thanks to the Director for Placemaking and Housing, the Assistant Director for Housing and the Housing Delivery Team for their continued work and significant commitment to the Housing delivery programme. This had been nationally recognised with an award from Inside Housing for the best Housing Delivery Team of the year.

Cabinet was asked to approve the use of Right to Buy receipts towards seven new Council homes at Crawley Road, to agree budgets for homes already delivered at Harvey House and Finsbury Road, and to remove three unsuitable sites from the programme.

7.35pm - Due to a significant fault in the sound system affecting the live stream of the meeting and limiting participation of officers joining the meeting online, the Chair Adjourned the meeting

The meeting restarted at 7.45pm.

In response to questions from Cllr Hakata and Cllr Connor, the following was noted:

-      Overall, the programme was moving towards a target of 35% three-bedroom homes and 10% with four or more bedrooms. This demonstrated how the Council building programme would provide real benefits to residents awaiting Council homes and also those that were living in severely crowded accommodation.

-      The Council were building homes sustainably and to last. They were accessing innovations which provided value for money and met high end needs in the borough.

-      All schemes would be built following planning permission, and the Council was confident that it could deliver 3000 homes. In addition, the Councill had a spend envelope for housing delivery which was being monitored and adhered to.

Following consideration of exempt information at item 23 and agreement of the exempt recommendations,

RESOLVED

1. To approve the removal of 3 sites from the programme: Land adjacent to 82 Muswell Hill Place, Stokley Court and Eade Road. Reasons for this are individual and set out in detail in the report.

2. To note the post-completion reports for the new Council homes at Errol Cour (500 White Hart Lane), 27 Harvey House  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41