Issue - meetings

This item is due to be pre-scrutinised at a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee scheduled to take place on 7^th July 2025.  Any recommendations on this subject arising from that meeting will be reported for the Executive Committee's consideration in a supplementary pack.

The Strategic Housing Services Manager presented a report on the subject of the Housing Growth Programme.

The Executive Committee was reminded that the Council already had a Housing Growth Programme.  The Council received funding in this programme through a process of one-for-one receipts when Council houses were sold.  Under current rules, the Council had the right of refusal in the first ten years after a resident purchased a former Council house. In recent months, the Government had announced that changes would be made to the rules in respect of Right to Buy.  Whilst the legislation which would contain the detail had not yet been issued, the Government had advised that these changes would include giving Councils a right of refusal over sales of Council houses indefinitely.  Eligibility amongst Council tenants to apply to purchase a Council property under Right to Buy was also due to be extended from tenants who had lived in a property for three years to those who had lived in a property for five years or more.  In addition, the Government was proposing that any new Council houses built by a local authority should not be eligible to sell for 35 years after development.

The Council would not necessarily want to purchase all properties available under the right of refusal process.  There was a particular need for more properties that would be suitable to accommodate families.  Sometimes, there were challenges that arose in terms of the Council determining whether to purchase properties under the right of refusal process as often estate agents and solicitors did not highlight that a property subject to these rules was due to be sold until a potential purchaser had been identified and the parties were due to complete the sale.

Under the current terms of the Council Housing Growth Programme, there was a capital budget of £3 million per year to spend on developing or purchasing new Council houses.  Once this figure was spent, additional funding could not be accessed without agreement from the Executive Committee.  Officers were asking for greater flexibility in the Council Housing Growth Programme to enable expenditure over this level where needed and this would help the Council to respond to opportunities on the open market as they arose in a timely manner.

When developing new properties, Officers were aiming to install materials and to use design methods that would ensure that those properties achieved an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) A rating.  This would have both a positive impact on climate emissions and help to reduce the energy costs that needed to be met by tenants living in those properties.

Once the report had been presented, Members discussed the following points in detail:

·             The need for the Council to issue communications to owner occupiers living in former Council properties about the authority’s first right of refusal on the sale of their properties.

·             The target number of properties that the Council was aiming to build by 2030 under the Council Housing Growth Programme. 

·             The potential for the Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18