Council Launches Housing Strategy Consultation
PAUL McLAUGHLIN
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has launched a public consultation as part of its plans to develop a new housing strategy for the town. At a well-attended launch in Muriel Matters House last Tuesday (1 October), Cllr Glenn Haffenden, the Deputy Leader of HBC and its portfolio holder for Housing and Community Wellbeing, said he wanted to have a meaningful engagement with all residents “with particular effort made to hear from those who may be most impacted by the strategy but whose voices are not always heard through traditional consultation routes.”
The first stage of the consultation includes a series of public events with the council in “listening mode”. The aim is to encourage a wide range of views from residents, local housing providers and homelessness charities to develop ideas for the new strategy. A steering group survey will then be set up to take these ideas forward with a view to putting together a draft document by the end of the year. This will be followed in the new year with a revised consultation on the draft plans before the new Housing Strategy is formally launched in June 2025.
A main priority will be to reduce the costs of providing temporary accommodation, which have rocketed since 2019 when the last housing strategy document was published. The Council now spends £4.5 million per year to place homeless households in temporary and emergency accommodation, a six-fold increase on the £730,000 it spent just five years ago.
Chris Hancock, HBC’s Head of Housing, is well placed to oversee this role. Before taking up his present position last year, he was Services Development Director for Crisis, the national charity for people facing homelessness. He believes homelessness is largely the result of a housing shortage, and the only way to end the problem is by providing more homes both for sale and for rent in Hastings. To this end he recognises the “vital role” which the private-rented sector has in providing more homes within the town, including the improvement of housing standards with a new licensing scheme for this sector.
NEW HOMES
HBC is also fully committed to delivering on its Housing Acquisitions programme. To date, 63 new homes have been acquired; 37 more are currently being conveyed and, if all goes to plan, these are calculated to save the council £285,672 from the temporary accommodation budget.
In addition, HBC plans to build new council homes and work closely with housing providers to increase the housing stock. Unlike other areas which have ample space to build new houses, Cllr Haffenden explained that in Hastings many of the available sites are too small to attract larger developers. As a result, he said, the council was looking to work with others to develop these smaller sites.
Hastings Commons is one of these. The community-led regeneration group has applied to become a Registered Provider (RP) to operate as a social landlord/housing association. The application is at an advanced stage and CEO Jess Steele says she hopes the “long and difficult” registration process will be completed early in 2025, adding that “this will help to unlock funding for many more long-term affordable homes within Hastings.”
A spokesperson for HBC said that the council was “pleased to see Hastings Commons take this step. The more RPs we have interested in developing affordable housing in the town, the better. By registering, housing providers are able to access Affordable Housing Grants from Homes England and will also be regulated in line with other RPs.”
Cllr Haffenden and Mr Hancock agreed that the new Housing Strategy needed to be “owned” by the borough as a whole and not just seen as a council document. That required strong synergy and links with the core departments that influence housing, i.e. planning and regeneration, and with other cross-sector partners – charities, public housing providers and private landlords. Targets must be SMART [specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound]. They also acknowledge, however, that the Council is operating within a very restricted financial climate, particularly in view of the threatened deep cuts proposed by East Sussex County Council, the extent of which will only become clear after the Government’s Budget in October.
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