Examination of Witnesses (Questions 130
- 139)
MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2007
COUNCILLOR BOB
COPLAND, MR
ALAN DAVIES
AND MR
STEVE CLARK
Q130 Mr Hands:
A very general question to start with. Do you think there is a
shortage of affordable housing in Nuneaton and Bedworth? What
are you doing about it? And, most particularly, are you working
with other partner organisations to address the shortfall, if
there is one.
Mr Clark: Yes, there is a shortage,
without any shadow of a doubt. The waiting list is increasing;
in fact, it has increased by over a 1,000 during the last 12 months,
from three thousand to just over 4,000. We are trying to do something
about it. The Council has recently transferred land at nil consideration
to an RSL to enable them to build properties, particularly some
for rent in the borough, and we are working with a number of RSL
partners, have a close relationship with the housing corporation
and are also talking to a number of landlords and private developers
to see what we can achieve within the borough. One of our problems
is that the Council owns very little land of its own, but we are
looking at some brownfield sites where we have demolished garages
and other areas to try and use some of those to provide affordable
housing.
Q131 John Cummings:
How many houses are standing empty at the present time?
Mr Clark: Of the council's own
stock none at all. We do have quite a number of private sector
homes in the borough that are empty and we have recently recruited
specific staff to tackle the empty homes with empty dwelling management
orders to try and ensure we are bringing them into use.
Q132 Mr Hands:
Coming back to the strategy point, have you delivered anything
under the strategy? You have talked about the shortage of land,
working with RSLs, nil consideration—what have you delivered
so far?
Mr Davies: We have a target in
our housing strategy to deliver 258 affordable units per annum,
based on the previous housing needs survey. Currently we believe
we are delivering around 30-50% of that target each year, which
is well below the figure we assessed when the previous needs strategy
was undertaken. We feel that the needs assessment needs to be
carried out again, and we are pretty certain that that figure
of 258 will rise and we will have to do more.
Mr Hands: You said your waiting list
had grown from 3-4,000. Is this waiting list just the people under
the 1986 Act who have registered an interest in being accommodated,
or is it based on real need?
Q133 Emily Thornberry:
The frivolous applicants who think they might like to live in
a council house?
Mr Clark: Some waiting lists are
discredited by research done over many years, but traditionally
they are more an expression of demand than need, but the point
system that the Council uses does give points based on specific
needs—overcrowding, lack of bedroom spaces, poor heating,
unfit homes, so most of the people on our waiting list have quite
specific housing needs points as well as points merely for registering
and building up time in the borough.
Q134 Chair: Where
are they living now?
Mr Clark: They are living in a
variety of places. Some are in private rented accommodation, which
may be too expensive for them to afford or not right for their
needs, in the wrong areas of the borough to travel to schools
and to work. Some are at home. Some are living with friends and
relatives and sleeping on people's floors and so on. With 4,000
we have a very wide spectrum of where people are currently living.
Councillor Copland: I am speaking
about people who come to my surgery and the ones who do that,
generally speaking, the vast majority, are living with mum, dad,
relatives—that sort of thing. These are the sort of people
coming to me, and that is where they are living.
Q135 Emily Thornberry:
How often do you do your housing needs survey? Also, of that 4,000
how many of them have the right number of points? If you have
a choice-based lettings system, on points, how many of those can
actually bid for housing?
Mr Clark: The last full needs
survey was undertaken in 2000 with an update in 2003. I have placed
an advertisement for expressions of interest to undertake a new
housing needs survey. I have to say there seems to be some discussion
between the Regional Assembly and the DCLG as to whether anyone
needs to undertake a needs survey any more, but our view is that
looking at the planning inspections at Lichfield and Stafford
recently, the planning inspector said he was not going to approve
the plans without robust needs assessment, and we feel as a local
authority that without some very local work undertaken it is difficult
for us to get the right figures. We have not yet introduced a
choice-based letting scheme. We are working with our partners
up the A5 at Tamworth, Lichfield and so on to introduce a choice-based
letting scheme, but at the moment we operate a points-based system,
where people accumulate points based on their current accommodation
and what their needs are.
Q136 Chair: In
your answer to Mr Hands you have talked entirely about providing
affordable housing from your own land, but you do not seem to
be using section 106 agreements at all to provide any affordable
housing. Can you explain how it is that the regional strategy
apparently sets a target for 2011 that you have already exceeded,
and why you do not seem to be using section 106 to provide affordable
housing as well?
Mr Davies: We are working with
private sector developers to achieve the targets. We have achieved
more than the targets but the difficulty we face is—
Q137 Chair: Is
this the target for total housing?
Mr Davies: Yes, and that is the
difficulty really. It is not in the rented social sector that
we are able to provide the dwellings that we need to provide.
Just to put it in more of a context, in 1980 we had over twelve
and a half thousand dwellings in the borough. That is now reduced
to 6,000 of which 1,200 are sheltered units for our elderly, and
our waiting list has gone up from under 1,000 in 2000 to 4,000
now, so there has been a massive increase with a reduced supply
and we have not been able to provide rented social accommodation,
which is what we need to provide. We are providing dwellings but
not in the right areas.
Q138 Chair: So
the social dwellings you get as part of your section 106 are all
shared ownership, is that right?
Mr Davies: The ones we have been
able to get so far have been shared ownership. Having said that,
Mr Clark said last year, for example, we negotiated an agreement
with an RSL to deliver social rented housing which involved land
transfer at nil value. The value of that was £250,000.
Q139 Chair: I
am still having difficulty in understanding why you, unlike some
other local authorities, are not able to get some social rented
housing out of your section 106 agreements with private developers?
Councillor Copland: That is not
true. I do not have the numbers but I sit on the Planning Committee
as well and I am aware that we do get rented from 106 agreements.
Mr Davies: But not as many as
we need; that is the point.
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