Present

Marc Williams (MW) Wrexham CBC

Mike Jenkins (MJ) Wrexham CBC

Alan Hardbattle (AH) Wrexham CBC

Clive Nicholas(CN) Wrexham CBC

Wendy Barnsley (WB) Wrexham CBC

Shayne Hembrow(SH) Walesand West Housing Association

Deiniol Evans (DE) Pennaf Group

Graham Worthington(GW) Pennaf Group

Tracey Gibson (TG) Wrexham CBC

Bryn Jones(BJ) Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd Housing Association

Apologies

Anne Hinchey – Wales and West

Richard Price – House Builders Federation

Gwynne Jones – Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd

Mike Pender – House Builders Federation/Anwyl

1 Welcome

Graham Worthington welcomed everybody to the meeting.

2 Minutes of Last Meeting

The Minutes of the last meeting were accepted as a true and accurate record.

3 Affordable Housing Update

Member/Officer Task and Finish Group

MJ handed out a report on Affordable Housing in Wrexham – including a brief summary of the current housing market in Wrexham. And the recommendations of the Affordable Housing Task & Finish Group to be submitted to Social Affairs, Health & Housing Scrutiny Committee on 21st July.

Joint funding has been obtained from Pennaf, Wales & West, Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd and Housing & Public Protection to appoint an officer on a 3 month contract to identify land that is owned by local authorities which could potentiallybe used for affordable housing.

Action: RSL’s requested written confirmation that the officer was in place. - MJ

AHB had prepared a report of S106 developments where development had stopped to be circulated after the meeting.

This will be useful to RSL’s as there may be opportunities for them to work with the developers. Wrexham are not alone in developers stopping work. This is the position across Wales.

Affordable Housing Delivery Plans

The Welsh Assembly Government(WAG) proposes to introduce a statutory duty on Local Authorities to produce an affordable housing delivery plan by 31st March 2009. This will contain a four year target for affordable housing and set out how it will be delivered. It is an interim measure until Local Development Plan’s (LDP) are in place. There is a potential for it to be linked to Social Housing Grant.

The guidance document assumes that local authorities are in the same position. Some local authorities will welcome this measure as they have no formal affordable housing policies. Others, like Wrexham, have already done much of this work and it has been suggested that the documents that are already in existence could be pulled together with a covering policy statement. Formal consultation seems unnecessary in this situation.

A concern was that with the credit crunch, would we be able to deliver the plans set out.

Consultation work for the LDP suggests that affordable housing is not really a major issue with residents. It was noted that many people may not be aware that the Local Authority is involved in affordable housing. Other issues are that some people do not want to live next door to those in affordable housing, so are in opposition to affordable housing projects.

Do we need a delivery plan if we have an LDP?The timescales and contents for each need to be examined.

Action: Response to consultation to be prepared from the Alliance. Comments to MJ.

4 Social Housing Grant Update

MJ is still waiting on a date for submission to WAG. Some of the developments included in the SHG may be deferred to a later date, and there may be some more schemes that will be added. Most of the schemes are deliverable.

RSL’sare concerned that the 2009/2010 is over subscribed and is going to take 3 years to deliver. WAG don’t seem to see this as a problem, believing that schemes will fall out of the programme. However, given the deliverability of the 2009/2010 schemes, this is unlikely to be the case.

5 Homelessness Update

(MW) County Borough has been working to reduce the use of bed & breakfast accommodation to house homeless people. This has been successful, with a reduction from £323,000 to £133,000 in the past 2 years. This has been through private leasing and also through homeless prevention programmes being set up.

Support agencies have until 4th July to submit proposals to run the Night Shelter. Revenue funding is tight and we may need to go back to WAG if we can’t afford to deliver the scheme.

Tenancy Support for those in temporary accommodation is to be provided by the Wallich. This will also be available to those who are in bed & breakfast accommodation.

A young person’s mediation service/conflict resolution scheme has also been set up with Denbighshire and Flintshire. This will also be provided by the Wallich and is specifically geared to young people but can be applied to anyone as long as they are homeless.

Homeless service is looking at the work of Vale Royal as an example of best practise.

The National 10 year homelessness plan will soon be out for consultation.

The National Homelessness network is working on a number of projects including:

  • Framework for Section 108 funding
  • Research into the transient nature of homelessness
  • ‘Mystery Shopper’ exercise to see what services people are offered to them, if people are given the right information and are give the option to make a homeless application.

6 Private Sector Housing Update – Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) and Empty Properties

MJ distributed copies of the draft HMO Improvement and Private Sector Enforcement Policies. The draft documents will be presented to Scrutiny Committee on the 9th July and thereafter open to consultation. Consultation expected to run from mid August to end of September to include Alliance members.

MJ provided update regarding ongoing programmed HMO and empty property inspections, licensing procedure and landlord & tenant information packs.

Over the next 12 months it is expected that empty properties will be down to a core of 100-150.

7 Older Persons Housing

A copy of the report written by WB was included with the agenda and identified that there needs to be more provision for older persons housing in Wrexham as the number of people over 60 is expected to increase by 37% by 2026. This is a draft report which will be presented to the Accommodation & Housing Support Strategy for Older People (AHSSOP) group.

SH suggested that the report be sent to WAG as an example of good practice for Local Authorities. There needs to be more land available for Extra Care schemes and more accommodation for older people.

8 Local Housing Strategy Action Plan Monitoring

SMW guided officers through the action plan and progress as of June 2008.

It was agreed to review the plan at the next meeting as it would have been in place for 12 months.

9 Nominations Monitoring

WB handed out end of year figures regarding nominations and stated that the 50% target has been easily met.

Further auditing was needed to investigate the lower figure of 41% for Clwyd Alyn.

10 Local Housing Market Assessment – Consultation

MJ has a meeting in July with Flintshire and Denbighshire councils to discuss formal consultation. CDs and Executive Summary’s were distributed to Alliance Members. Comments to MJ are welcome. The information from the report will be going on the website and will be distributed to all Councillors pending wider consultation.

11 Rural Housing Enabler(RHE)

(MJ) WAG has indicated that there is £150,000 available as part funding for 10 RHE's in Wales. There have been 4 successful pilot schemes and WAG want to extend to the whole of Wales.

MJ has spoken with Flintshire and North Powys about their interest in part funding the RHE and both are interested. There was concern that resources would be spread too thinly between three Local Authority areas and MJ sought views of members present, particularly Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd who are already partnering RHE with Conwy and Denbighshire.Consensus that a partnership covering Wrexham and Flintshire only was preferable.

MJ will be sitting on the RHE Network Steering Group to agree terms and conditions, branding, salaries etc. Once WAG funding finally approved partnership arrangements, office base and management arrangements will need to be agreed.

It is expected that the RHE funding will be confirmed in August with post-holder in place October/November.

Action - MJ will report progress to next meeting.

12 AOB/Partners Up-Dates

Essex review was published on Tuesday with 56 recommendations. The Wrexham Housing Alliance was to be included as an example of good practice.

Wendy Barnsley leaves her post on 11th July. GW recorded thanks to Wendy for all her hard work and contribution to the team and good luck to her in her new role.

13 Time and date of next meeting

18th September 2008 at 10am.

Housing Standards & Strategy Team, WrexhamCounty Borough Council,

Ruthin Road, WrexhamLL13 7TU

Tîm Strategaeth A Safonau Tai, Bwrdeisftref Sirol Wrexham,

Ffordd Rhuthun, Wrecsam. LL13 7TU