Agenda item

A draft new Haringey Housing Strategy (2015-2018) has been developed (attached) which is open for consultation until the 18^th October 2015.

9.1 The Lead Commissioner for Housing attended to brief the panel on the Haringey Housing Strategy (presentation attached).  It was noted that this related to corporate priority five in the council and sets out the principles and objectives that will help to achieve this priority.  It was also noted that this was a partnership strategy, also setting out the role of partners in meeting the set objectives.

9.2 An initial consultation was undertaken in 2014 on the key principles that would underpin housing strategy and this has informed the development of the Haringey Housing Strategy. There were over 300 responses to this initial consultation, and subsequent analysis of consultation responses demonstrated strong support for the proposed principles.  Analysis also revealed three other themes:

• Achievability - whether the council can practically deliver on all the desired objectives;
• Accepting that people and communities are important within the strategy, ‘bricks and mortar’ for building new homes was of paramount importance;
• Affordability and the quality of the PRS was also important.

9.3 In response, the Haringey Housing Strategy has a number of themes:

·         helping to deliver more targeted services for those most in housing need;

·         prevention of homelessness;

·         improving quality of housing in particular the private rented sector;

·         ensuring the increasing supply of new homes and that there is a social dividend to development.

9.4 It was reported to the panel that there have been a number of substantive legislative and policy changes since the publication of the Housing Strategy which will influence the final shape of this document and the deliverability of objectives. Key issues highlighted were:

·         recent budget announcements to reduce social rents which will restrict headroom within Housing Revenue Account and which will ultimately impact on the number of houses the council is able to build itself;

·         the introduction of Housing & Planning Bill which among other things, extends right to buy (RTB) among housing associations and forces the sale of high value council homes.

9.5 It was noted that there was a significant housing affordability issue in Haringey, an issue which is similarly experienced by residents in many other London boroughs.  Buying a property remains out of reach for many local residents given that the average house price in the borough is in excess of £500k which would require a significant deposit and income to finance.  As average income in the borough is about £40k, buying a property is prohibitive for many residents.

9.6 The RTB will continue to be challenging as the council continues to lose local stock through this heavily discounted purchase scheme.  In addition, the loss of high value properties over a certain threshold could severely impact on the availability of social housing in some areas of the borough.  The threshold is yet to be fully determined, but initial estimates suggest that this could lead to the forced sale of up to 50 properties per year.  The panel were concerned that these proposals could exacerbate inequalities between the east and the west of the borough.  This could be of particular problem in specific wards where there are lots of street properties (e.g. Muswell Hill).  How the forced sale will work in practice is yet to be determined as separate guidance is expected to be published soon, however what is known so far can be summarised as thus:

·         once identified  properties become vacant, these must remain vacant;

·         this will result in loss of rental income;

·         receipts are not maintained locally, though pooled regionally.

9.7 Provisions in the Welfare Bill indicate that there will be a reduction in social rents of 1% per year until 2010, in part to help reduce Housing Benefit costs.  It is estimated that this will result in a loss of £15m per annum to the HRA, which will inhibit the council’s ability to build new homes.

9.8 The panel discussed affordable rents, and in particular the definition of what this actually meant in monetary terms.  It was noted that by definition, affordable could be up to 80% of the local market rent.  In Haringey, social housing is let at approximately 37/38% of market rent, though this will reduce with coming legislation.

9.9 The panel discussed RTB of housing association properties in further detail, where it was noted that the National Federation of Housing Associations has brokered a voluntary agreement.  With this agreement  there will be no need for primary legislation to enact RTB proposals, so this will proceed, with certain safeguards (e.g. protecting housing in rural areas). 

9.10 The panel discussed the provision of lifetime tenancies and whether it was now a more realistic proposition to offer more short-hold tenancies (1-5 years).  The panel noted that the current policy (of providing lifetime tenancies) was considered by members at the adoption of the current tenancy strategy which expires in 2016 and will be subject to review at that point.  The panel agreed that the new strategy should come to scrutiny before decision.

Agreed: That the new Tenancy Strategy should be presented to scrutiny before final decision.

9.11 The panel noted that formal consultation for the strategy closed on 18^th October and that the emerging findings from this consultation would be presented at the next meeting as per work programme.  This will provide the panel with an opportunity to comment on these ahead of an expected final decision at Cabinet in January 2016.