- 11, 000 homes update / consultation
Ebony Riddell Bamber, Housing and Community Services
- Kitchens / bathrooms project
Sylvester Hilton, Design & Delivery Manager (North Team)
- Tenant and Residents Engagement – leaseholders / tenants
Jessica Leech, Residents Participation Co-ordinator
Minutes:
11,000 homes update / consultation
Jess Leech, Residents Participation Team, gave a presentation.
2013 – Borough wide consultation on the future of council housing. The council committed to build 11,000 new homes in the next 30 years with 1,500 delivered by 2018.
2014 – Borough wide consultation on the charter of principles. A list of promises to residents on how the council would involve them in decisions related to the new homes. Over 2,000 responses received.
2015 – Borough wide consultation on principles for all council developments.
- Where to build the homes
- Design standards
- Tenure mix
- How to decide to invest or rebuild.
Engagement methods include:
- interactive digital map of the borough
- community forums
- youth events
- community conversations
- online e-form
- postcards for written input
- mailings to residents and leaseholders
Councillor Richard Livingstone added that half of the new homes being built on sites would be ring-fenced for those people in housing need already living on the estate immediately affected.
In response to questions, the following points were made:
- The 1, 500 would be council properties
- Young people would benefit from the 30-year programme and a lot of work had gone into how best to engage with them e.g. schools, social media and an event at the Ministry of Sound.
- 11,000 additional homes over 30 years would not solve the housing problem but it was part of a solution.
- An extra care facility was being built at Cator Street. Willow Walk would have some hostel accommodation and general needs accommodation.
Tenant and Resident Engagement
Jess Leech explained that:
- In March 2013, the council agreed an engagement strategy. The objective was that all residents in the borough were entitled to a say and where appropriate some control over the services available.
- The strands of the engagement strategy had included how to improve services and increase engagement.
- Council officers supported tenants and residents associations (TRAs) and attended AGMs. The capacity and partnerships team do a lot of work around setting up new TRAs and provide training and advice for tenants. There were a couple of resource centres that TRAs can use to print minutes and newsletters.
- The resident participation team arranged consultations with TRAs on a range of local issues.
- A piece of work last year involved engagement with older residents. All sheltered housing units were visited. An event brought all the units together which also introduced the different services that residents could access.
- Workshops had taken place with residents in temporary accommodation about how to get involved and how to be better neighbours.
- Overall there were 126 TRAs. The officers in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe were George Coombes and Chucks Amaechi.
- About £3.1 million had been spent on improving TRA halls.
Kitchens and Bathrooms Project
Sylvester Hilton, Major Works Team, gave an overview presentation.
- In February 2015, cabinet agreed to establish a six year kitchen and bathroom programme to “deliver aquality kitchen and bathroom for every council tenant” by March 2021, as part ofa wider asset management strategy. It was agreed to coincide with the final year of the current warm, dry and safe programme in 2015/16 to replace kitchens older than 20 years and bathrooms older than 30 years.
- Further details would come before Cabinet later in the year, setting out how the kitchens and bathrooms programme could be taken forward from April 2016, as part of the broader housing asset management strategy.
- A list of properties in the area with planned works was circulated.
In response to questions, some of the following points were made:
- It was the first year of a six-year programme so surveyors would be adding to the current list of properties during that time after assessment.