Agenda item

Consider report by Service Director Strategy and Policy to advise Members of all affordable housing completions, and progress made in the delivery of the Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) projects for the period 2014-2015.

OTHER PUBLIC BUSINESS

          CHAIRMAN

Councillor Mitchell took the Chair for the remaining business.

4.1     With reference to paragraph 9 of the Council Minute of 30 October 2015, there had been circulated copies of a report by the Service Director Strategy and Policy advising Members of all affordable housing completions and progress made in the delivery of the Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) projects for the period 2014-2015.  The report explained that the SHIP was the key document for targeting affordable housing investment in Scottish Borders.  Annual updates were previously submitted to the Scottish Government in November of each year with the current SHIP 2015/20 having been submitted in October 2014.  Local Authorities to date were required to produce and submit a SHIP annually to the Scottish Government but 2014 saw the Scottish Government change this requirement to bi-annually. Thus the next SHIP submission was likely to be in November 2016.  The report advised Members that in 2014/15, 62 affordable houses weredelivered, with 49 homes being for social rent, 3 via the Open Market Shared Equity scheme, and 10 homes for mid-market rent via Bridge Homes, the limited liability partnership established as a result of the Council’s new National Housing Trust/Local Authority Variant initiative.  Scottish Ministers had recently confirmed that this initiative could be extended until March 2019. Within the SHIP it was envisaged that 146 houses would be completedin 2014-2015, but due to contractor performance issues, 3 Registered Social Landlord projects totalling  87 homes would now complete in the first quarter of the current financial year and would thus be reported as completions in the 2015/16 SHIP update. This would give an anticipated outturn of 176 homes in 2015/16.

4.2     Members considered various aspects of the report including the location of affordable housing including the availability of land, whether targets were based on achievability or need, and the economies of scale for Registered Social Landlords building in blocks of units rather than single units.  In response to a query about Affordable Housing Developer Contributions, Members were reassured that, to date and despite being time limited, all such Developer Contributions had been utilised by the Council and none had been returned. With regard to the identified slippage against the 2014/15 target and the reasons for this the Group Manager, Housing Strategy and Services, emphasised that this was within the control of the Registered Social Landlords rather than the Council but agreed to request further details.  She added that over the three year period, between 2013/14 and the anticipated outturn at the end of 2015/16, the target of 103 houses per year would have been met. However it was noted that this was not consistent with the 5 year target set within the Community Planning Partnership (CPP).  It was suggested that this should be discussed within the CPP in the light of the strategy, to look at the balance between the expectations and what had been achieved.  On the question of the desirability of relating targets to need the Group Manager explained that although the first SHIP planning document was based on need the Plan was now required to be based on resources and the financial capacity to deliver. This was not within the Council’s power to amend.  However, the National Housing Trust initiative would bring further opportunities to deliver additional housing.  An example of the latter was given as the development of a gap site at Innerleithen.  With regard to the need for more rural housing Members were advised that the Council had delivered rural projects in the past and reference was made to the Scottish Government’s Rural Funding initiative.  Similarly Scottish Government had launched the Empty Homes Town Centre initiative although this was currently in abeyance due to issues with conditions imposed by the Treasury on use of the funding. The Council had attempted to identify every owner of empty property and reference was made to the Empty Homes Loan Fund.  Members emphasised the importance of bringing empty properties back into use both to provide additional housing and to contribute to town centre regeneration. 

       DECISION

       AGREED:-

(a)       to endorse the progress made in the delivery of affordable housing projects in  2014/15 as set out in the Strategic Housing Investment Plan; and

(b)       to note the extension to the National Housing Trust/Local Authority Variant initiative to March 2019.

MEMBER

Councillor Aitchison left the meeting during the above discussion and re-joined the meeting during the discussion on the item below.