Transcript

• Okay, welcome to the meeting. My name's Councillor White and I am the Chair of the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order. Please switch on your microphone and I will confirm your attendance. I know the first name on the list actually is Councillor Austin and we know he's gonna be late, but he will be here. Councillor Ayers. - Here. - Councillor Gichain. - Here. - Councillor Mrs Graham. - Present. - Councillor McLeod. - Present. - And welcome to first meeting. Councillor Rigby. - Thank you. - Councillor Tiller. - Present. - Good. I couldn't see you there for a moment, Matthew. And another first housing meeting, Councillor Varafraj. - Thank you, Chair, and good evening. - Brilliant, okay. Unfortunately, Councillor Gavinga is unwell and I hope we can see him online, but yeah, he's present. And I hope you're not too unwell, Councillor Gavinga. So he will be unable to appear in person, but he will be joining us on teams. - But thank you, Councillor White. Thank you very much for that. And I explained to Mr. Kelly that I will participate when I can, but I will largely keep my hands on camera closed, if I may. - Good, okay, fantastic. As a committee member, because he's online, he won't be able to vote, but he'll be able to participate. I would also like to welcome Councillor Dickerton, cabinet member for housing. - Thank you. - And also Councillor Hogg, the leader of the council, who will introduce the paper on the autumn. And we do have other Councillors in attendance. We've had apologies from Mr. Price, the deputy chair of the Borough Residence Forum. Are there any other apologies apart from Councillor Austin? No, okay. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had a number of officers present who will introduce themselves when they address the committee. So first item is the minutes. Any objections to confirming the previous minutes of the 23rd of January as a correct record? Okay, good. And declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of any other registrable or non-registrable interests? I'll start by saying I'm a member of CREW, which is Community Renewable Energy Company, and they do have some relevance in some of the papers some of the time, but not necessarily this evening, but I gain no financial interest from my involvement. Anybody else? Councillor Gichain. - I'm a council leaseholder. - Councillor Tiller. - I'm a council tenant. - Councillor McKellan. - I'm also a council tenant. - Excellent, okay. So the report of the Borough's Residence Forum meeting on the 10th of July. Unfortunately, Miss Price is not here to give us a rundown, but I remind members to give attention to the views of the Borough Residence Forum when considering related items on tonight's agenda. Are we okay to note the report for information? Councillor, Mrs Graham. - Thank you, Chair. I know that Councillor Tiller is the housing champion, and when I'm sitting on the Borough housing, as I did, I was disappointed that he isn't sitting on it, and I'm very interested to know why, because he is the champion for housing with all the new initiatives going through. I mean, we welcome Councillor Ford, but I'm very interested to know why Councillor Tiller is not, you know, able to, you know, be part of it. - I think we can take that away and certainly give you an answer, but I don't think there's something for discussion this evening. Thank you. Yes. - The second thing is, if you look at the minutes from the 6th of January, there were questions actually in the minutes that residents, chairs of RAs, asked. And I note this time on the 10th that questions which were pertinent to the lease holder and free home reform were not added. I mean, quite a few Councillors on your side would be quite interested also to know what the RA chairs were saying. You know, they mentioned the focus group, they mentioned the concern about insurance. Will it be on, you know, and also about microchipping, okay, microchipping of caps, but also the electrical bikes. But it gives a taster for us as Councillors to take away, and when we are debating, to actually take that into our discussions. I really would appreciate, I mean, if you want to show me, I'll show you the actual agenda from the previous 6th of January, where there were very good questions. And I just feel that I would like to see, I'm sure it will continue, but I would very much like to see that happening. - Would you be okay to email Chris and see whether we can put some of those questions in?
• I'm delighted you're taking it on board, thank you.
• Yeah, okay, good, okay. Oh, and so apart from that, are we able to note the report for information? Okay, good. Okay, so there is a proposed change to the order of business so that we will bring the autumn paper forward. I know that that's a paper of interest. And it will also mean that Councillor Hogg can flip-flop between housing and finance this evening. I have never flip-flopped. So if I can ask Councillor Hogg to introduce the paper. - Thanks very much, Chair. Delighted to be here on this special evening. Really, really pleased to be able to introduce and share with you our plans for major investment in the Alton Estate. Our Alton Renewal Plan will help to keep the area special while making sure that all of the residents there can participate in the exciting opportunities that are generated in that neighbourhood. Our plan will deliver quick improvements for residents, including free use of that university bus, you know, drive people mad seeing the university bus going by empty from September. Residents will be able to use that for free. Also working with great partners at Wandsworth Community Transport to put on a minibus for local people. You'll see a new Alton Community Safety Officer to help make the neighbourhood safer. Working with police partners to actually get them based on the estate as well. Because if you're living in fear of crime, you can't enjoy a fulfilled life. And you'll also see new play spaces for children of all ages, not just at Downshire Fields, but also those fences around Alton Activity Centre will be coming down as well. Because we need those quick wins to help build trust to show our commitment to the neighbourhood. We're not the first set of politicians that have gone to that estate and, you know, promised great things. But we have spent the last two years listening to local people. You'll see in the report the pillars that have come out. It is about transport. It is about being connected to the rest of Putney. It is about those community facilities. It's about public safety. And of course it's about homes as well. But it's not just about demolishing whole parts of the estate and bringing new people in. It's about lifting up the community that's there at the moment. So as I say, once we've built that trust, those initial measures are just the start. In the longer term, you'll see more than 650 new homes being built, of which 58% will be affordable homes. Council homes guaranteed for local people and their sons and daughters. And that's more than double the affordable housing that we've seen in previous proposals in this area. We're going to create a brand new community hub with a new library in it. Plus we're going to bring more shops and more job opportunities to the estate. And of course as we're hosting London Borough of Culture 2025, we'll put the Alton at the heart of that. So there'll be new cultural and creative opportunities for local people. And all sorts of, I know I'm stealing a lot of thunder from the next presentation, but all sorts of wonderful schemes as well. Like we're going to push through an Alton gate into Richmond Park there. So local people will be able to get access, not just into the heart of Putney, but also into the beautiful green space around. So in creating this Alton Renewal Pan, we've listened really, really carefully to the priorities of local people. We now begin a year long conversation about it. I held my leaders drop in there on Saturday. It was great to listen to more than a hundred people there. All of the council cabinet and directors went to the estate for an away day on Friday with the cabinet member, with the excellent ward councillors. We've been out listening to school teachers. We've been listening to business people and of course, dozens and dozens of residents. And initial feedback has been positive, obviously lots of questions raised, but as I say, it's a year long conversation now, then everyone gets their say in the ballot and then, you know, onwards through planning permission and so on. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to all of the officers that have worked on this, many of whom we're fortunate enough to have here tonight. And I won't thank them all individually, but just to say it's wonderful to have Andy Elgar here this evening and Paul Moore. And I think we're now going to hear from them, two of the many architects of this who will be able to talk you through some of these proposals in more detail. Thank you. - Thank you very much, Councillor Hogg. I know we've got a question from Councillor Govindia, but I'd really like to go to the two officers, Councillor Andy Elgar and Paul Moore to say a little bit more about this.
• Hi, good evening members. Thank you, chair. Thank you, leader. You stole my thunder already. So I think my job is to be the warmup actor for Mr. Elgar this evening. Just to, by way of introduction, the name's Paul Moore and I'm interim director of place. Pleased to meet a number of members here this evening and apologies for not having had the opportunity to meet face to face previously. I'm new to the team and first I must commend the great work that's been done by two good colleagues sat on the bench in front of me. I picked up the running in January really with the brief to bring to bear on the Alton, the broader body of contribution from the remainder of the council. That's the brief that I've taken on. And I do stress that builds on the work in particular that Anna had done through much of 2023 to really harvest the views of residents, understand the views of residents and bring forward a range of creative ideas from colleagues working across council departments. So just going on to the first slide, what's the Alton regeneration plan about? It's really trying to blend these three themes, listening to views about the issues and the investment needs of the Alton estate as a place. It is clearly about advancing long-term investment in affordable homes. And as the leader has rightly said already, it is about listening to people but critically delivering projects that get real traction and real support and improve day-to-day lives. That's really the challenge that the officer team collectively have been working towards. Leader, you've already touched on the pillars, if we can go to those in the next slide. Just to say a few words about this, these have probably as much as any project that I've seen and been involved with in the last 10 or 15 years going south east London, they've been driven by the views of residents. Much of that work during 23, but drawing on a broader legacy of work with partners and previous projects, I think we can honestly say that the views of residents, their asks have informed these six pillars. Some of the projects that underpin those pillars are clearly there in sections 10 to 16 of the report. I won't go over the same ground that the leader has already highlighted and is there in the report. One of those six pillars clearly in the bottom left is homes, and at that point I think I'll defer to Mr Algar, who's done much great work in that space. Thank you, members. Thank you. Evening, members. I'm Andy Howard. I'm the former Director of Regeneration and Development for the Council, and I left on the 30th of June, and at the time I put my notice in, I thought this committee was going to be in June. Brian asked me to come back to do this as a swan song, so I'm very pleased to be here. This plan shows the sort of core focus that we're looking at in terms of replacement homes, referred to as the project area, and one of the things that came out from the consultation was residents' desire to see more new homes meant to tackle overcrowding. Homes in the area are generally of a standard typology and face a number of challenges. Many of the units fall well below modern space standards. Over 25 percent are overcrowded. There's a lack of open space with the blocks. There's a lack of communal gardens and no balconies. The area that we're particularly looking at has some quite significant accessibility issues, partly due to its topography, which is very steep, the way it rises, so the way that people with either mobility problems or pushchairs navigate the estate, and very few blocks have level access, and no blocks have lifts. So in terms of looking at the, you know, that area in particular shown on the plan and the quality of the housing, we think we can do better. And the performance standard of 61 percent of the homes are in the worst EPC, environmental performance categories of DRE. So there's an appendix to the report that contains some images that try to bring to life the challenges of people living on the estate and how they traverse it. And we took a slightly, well we took a very different approach. It's a sort of demolition as a last result, which will come through when the revised proposals are a full part of this pack. But in thinking about whether demolition was appropriate, we considered some of the preceding issues around housing quality, accessibility, overcrowding, and some wider issues about trying to transform the retail offer on the estate by building new shops. And also in particular, it's quite an alternative place is inaccessible, and getting from A to B looks easy on a map. But if you're trying to go from, say, Dainbury Avenue to Queen Mary's Hospital and you can't hike up a steep hill, you have to go a very long route. So creating routes from Dainbury Avenue to Roehampton Lane to give people more direct access to the bus services and the hospital was really important. So the brief in terms of the proposals was to reflect the priority themes and objectives, the pillars that the leader referred to, increase the level of social rent homes, reduce the level of demolition, making it a choice of last result, and provide a better balance between affordable and private homes. And it retains all the key community elements, but now in the context of this wider place, this wider place offers, so in this plan, we've just shown it very generally. So the areas in red are new housing, yellow is new community space, blue is new communities, retail and commercial, and green on that plan is Dowsher Fields, which is a significant local public open space. So we moved to what we call a new people-focused option. So 650 new homes, over 50% affordable, significant reduction in demolition, new retail units to replace the existing units on Dainbury with additional units on the other side of the road, an enhanced place and community offer, and that improved accessibility between Dainbury Avenue and Roehampton Lane that I referred to. Yeah, and this table is part of an appendix, but I think it's quite useful to look at in making a contrast between the current proposals and the formal master plan. And there's a caveat to this, because these are based on numbers of the old master plan, and the new numbers are likely to be reduced because our homes are larger than the average private one, and there's quite a significant change in tenure, but the proportions are sort of locked in. So affordable housing has increased to well over 50% from a previous 24. Number of units demolished is reduced from 288 to
• There's a net increase of 130 social rent units versus a loss of one in the old proposals, a net loss of one, and a net increase of affordable housing overall of 245 versus 30 in the old proposals. And then the new proposal and the formal master plan were evaluated by officers against the themes identified, and this is shown in the table and is also an appendix to the report. So the people-focused proposal compared favourably to the original master plan, particularly on levels of affordable housing, levels of demolition, and the additional holistic impact on place. And clearly any decision is never about qualitative scores alone, it's also about affordability on cost, and when you look at these side by side and the additional ask of the HRA, the new proposal is of the order of 16 million, and the old proposal would have been circa 52. And just a run-through of the engagement process, again, which is a really important theme in all regeneration and what we're doing on the estate, but a process that engages on options, selects a preferred option, then takes that preferred option out to ballot following another period of engagement and then runs a ballot. So I think good consultation is non-negotiable and does take time, so whilst those times might look long, that's what we need to do to be able to get this right. And I think I'll hand over to Paul to conclude. So members, just to round up, the report brings you a major programme of investment in the Alton. It shows a commitment to the special qualities of the Alton, but it also speaks to a number of the challenges faced by residents on a day-to-day basis and indeed businesses. Hopefully you see a sense of balance and realism which can show immediate delivery, which is important for the reasons the leader has already outlined in terms of confidence and trust, and a sustained programme for the medium and longer-term investment, but that's still to be shaped by further resident engagement. Against the principles that we've outlined of you said and will do as a theme that comes forward through this report and the engagement that we've done so far and seek to continue. So finally, members, a set of comprehensive recommendations and officers are happy to take questions. Thank you, and thank you for Mr Algar, who since I've known him at the council has been involved in the Alton, so this is a big moment for him, and thank you so much for all the work that you've put in at the council. I've also noticed that Councillor Austin is with us now and this is his first meeting, so welcome Councillor Austin. Okay, so we go to questions, I think Councillor Covindia had a question. Sorry chair, it's not a question, I think I just want to find out how we're going to deal with the debate on this item. If I may put it this way, both the leader and the various officers have made a broad brush introduction to the paper and I think that would be right for me to be able to make a broad brush response to those and then we should go through the details of the paper because fundamentally the outcome is going to be driven by the detail in this paper and subsequent papers. So that's my first question to you, are we going to have that way of dealing with the paper? So you want to go through the paper bit by bit? No, no, what I am saying is that I think I should have an opportunity to make a broad brush response to what the leader Mr Elga and Mr Moore have done in their presentations and I think then our colleagues on all sides presumably will want to know some of the details. There are several recommendations, each of which might merit a bit of a discussion I think, and if you like we can move straight to vote and you can win the vote and we can all go home, but I think it's not in the best interest of either openness or a decent debate that would benefit the residents also. Yeah, as wide a discussion as we possibly can Councillor Galindo, I think, so if you've got any points to make then. Thank you, thank you, can I just simply do a broad brush response to what the leader Mr Elga and Mr Moore have said. For my part I think that those six pillars are not new, they're being part of the council's thinking under my administration and previous to that too, that anything that happens in Roehampton was going to be more than just simply housing, it was about improving connectivity as well as life chance outcomes for residents. I think apart from the quantum and tenure there is significantly little to differentiate between the previous thinking of the council and the proposed thinking of the council, so I just want to register that. Obviously there'll be individual things that will be different, for example, we wanted a library, you want a library, you want to transport connectivity, you want transport connectivity, so in a way I don't think there is a lot between us. What I do think is important that the residents of Alton will know that this will be the fourth consultation about their neighbourhoods and quite rightly they would want a response for the council which is both meaningful and focused in delivery and if that's the case we wish you well. So that's my kind of broad opening remarks and then I have some matters of detail that my and other colleagues may have that too would like to go through. Thank you Councillor Givindji, I don't know whether Councillor Dickerson would like to make a response. I mean I can only welcome a response like that which suggests that there are lots of shared goals. As Councillor Givindji knows tenure type for me is more than a small thing so it's kind of crucial to the framework through which we started on this because of our desire to deliver more council housing for you know for local families who are overcrowded currently on the estate and I think the other the kind of second key principle that has driven the design of this in a way that I think is different is our commitment to a ballot at the end so we needed to build a very big and broad coalition of people which meant I think shaping the plans differently but I'm sure we'll get we'll get into that into the formative discussion but all I can say is I welcome the kind of broad brushstroke support for the priorities that we've outlined you know some of the things I think are moving pretty fast and a pretty unique like the community bus I think that's been an amazing you know pioneering effort by Councillor Yates one of the ward councillors and the shops offer Matthew Tiller has played a massive role in changing the shops offer slightly but many of these things like Govindya says Councillor Govindya says is things that we can all we can all support and all get behind so that's nothing but welcome from this committee thank you was there another question Councillor Govindya sorry I think Councillor White I might not have made myself clear I think after those opening remarks to which I mean Councillor Dickardam's response is uh is positive and and and and conciliatory just as I had hoped that mine would have been too is that I think we should now go through the details of what the council proposes I mean I have a number of questions a number of reservations and I like that I didn't really want to offload all my my stuff and then suddenly you find that things get missed and I don't want to hog the platform either because I'm sure there are other people have a have a contribution to make I I'd suggest that we go through it in some sort of chunk so that we can have a detailed debate on all aspects of the paper I'm new to this committee but on all the committees I serve on we go through the paper and people can ask any question pull any comment is something different being proposed no everything every I feel like this all sounds like normal business to me crack on ask as many questions as you want this for us just to be very clear we're incredibly excited about this we like we've been waiting to showcase this this is a public forum where we get to talk about something that we think is going to be transformative for our borough so we want to spend as much time on it as possible we want to spend time on the detail the detail is really important so you know okay to use Councillor Dickerton's word um this is the beginning of a conversation which will end up in a year-long conversation end up ending a vote and then progress beyond that can I can I ask whether there is a scheme of consultation which there's not much in the paper that says who will be consulted stakeholders but you know exactly who make up the stakeholders whether the consultation will be with exclusively with people on the estate or will it be the wider neighbourhood will it be also with non-residential assets on the on the on the altar uh what is the weighting that we might want to give to those and say so I just just want to ask that question great so consultations yeah so if if the committee um passed recommendations tonight then we have a kind of up to the summer committee of next year a master planning process and that will be very broad um and we'll have institutions like the rampton partnership feeding into that we want to set up working groups that work directly you know anyone who's interested and wants to get involved you know in that master planning process and but that master planning process will also take place alongside the options that you know we call rch only people focused and and a do nothing one at the end of the day because we think that's important um and so during that year-long master planning residents feed in and that'll be wider than the the kind of demolition area but the ballot process is a statutory process and that has specific rules and that does only the votes are only for the people who are directly affected by the impact on their own housing specifically so broad net at the start during the master planning lots of consultation um and nailing down so we can have you know drawings and pictures and a physical plan that then goes to the ballot and the ballot lasts roughly six months and that is much more focused and targeted on those residents who are affected by the demolition okay i i appreciate that and i recognize the limitation of the ballot and and that the statutory nature of the rules around it but in leading up to the ballot um what about the wider rohampton community in a sense people east of the rohampton lane because one of the fundamentals must be that we what we whatever regeneration occurs it reduces the divide that rohampton lane poses between the east and the west of of that lane and and if we if that still remains a council's ambition how are we going to to bring them them in on the conlos ocean of course so only last night i was i was on the east i was in the holy trinity with reverend joshua and the rhampton partnership which includes partners that you know uh be at the uh the club down the road or people who may not even necessarily live in rahampton but run community organizations a voluntary sector so that first year is big net you know we want to bring in everyone people that work in rahampton people that pass through rahampton if possible people that live on either side of rahampton lane so you know the the scheme as you say only works if the community is brought together particularly that and we've all discussed it for years and years and years that kind of divide that is separated by the road you know that that that social economic divide is partly why the regeneration investment in the community is so important so you know we will be and we you know will be leafleting and delivering all the materials to that that wider footprint that covers both sides of the road okay um i don't know what the other colleagues want to add in but i can i if if i if i still have your attention chair can i move to move to the retail offer that's suggested in there there is a kind of a reference in paragraph 91 to convenience shopping and so i'm just being developed from the divide of rahampton lane and i i i feel that the council's ambition on the retail offer on that end of danebury avenue is is poor i think residents are entitled to more than convenient shopping i think you know in a wider context the early estate has significant issues of cost of living pressures and you know convenient shops don't offer the full range of discounts and full range of goods and so on and i i i would very much hope that somebody can put some flesh on what they mean by convenience but they is more than tesco local um i mean the current co-op is fine but it's not great and the square foot needs to almost double to provide the range that people want then and you know remember this is a very very diverse community i mean i there are people who know it better than i do but you know there is no reference to diversity of shopping offer um you know why should somebody have to travel miles to get a bunch of plantains for for that for the evening meal and and there is no effort here to to uh to try and to to try and make that easier for for the many in the in the in the area okay uh mister also around that the on page 12 about economic inclusion uh and it talks about very similar attracting new shops and businesses um and more skills training and employment opportunities and maybe you could talk a little bit about that as well what what type of uh training and um skills would people uh expect to see okay so i mean in in terms of the the the retail offer it's it's it's focus and intention isn't significantly different from what was proposed before which was that we provide continuity to those existing shops that people value the most and provide those on the north side of danebury avenue and as with the old proposals we may be a bit more flexible about retail uses community use or business use so i don't see that this is significantly different from the old one and paragraph 91 only refers to shops north of danebury avenue not the south in terms of employment and skills we are looking as part of the proposals for the new community hub to put some low-cost workspace in there so that would come out relatively early in the scheme and we would be working with the edo it's likely that that space will be managed in-house by the council rather than an external operator so we will we will be looking i suppose thinking about what we will be spending ourselves in terms of construction and what we might be doing for local people there and also working with the edo about you know small businesses in that space and then creating spaces for the edo to give advice and training and others adult learning from that new community hub um i think i'd like to move on to some of the other uh committee members so has anybody got any questions for councilor rigby yeah the alton gate sounds really cool um giving people access to the park um how come that was never there before is it just because of the way it's being configured or was the conversation not had it's something we've been working on for five years um but it's dependent on royal parks so there's no lack of attitude or enthusiasm on the council's part it's just we were always dependent we still are dependent on royal parks but it does appear to be finally falling in place after five years of lobbying and engagement with them yeah a year ago we did a walk around with local councilors and the royal parks and richmond because of the planning application that was going to be about the opening of that space so we're starting to see some some movements and joint some joint coordination it is a kind of thing that comes up regularly that you know people have to go all the way around and there are kids who live on the estate have never been to richmond park which is obviously a kind of travesty and the regeneration is all about trying to provide those opportunities not bad back back garden to have really richmond park is it um councilor keshen sorry thank you chair um it's good to see this paper um as we know that there's their support across the chamber for doing something about the autumn we might disagree about the way to go about that but it's great finally after two years to see this paper because the autumn residents obviously have been living with uncertainty over the last couple of years and the paper's very good on the detail of the ambition what you want to achieve and there's lots about that that that you know that we would support wholeheartedly but but the paper is fairly sketchy on how those ambitions will be achieved we know that the housing sector for example is very volatile and it never behaves the way we want it to behave um there's um relatively little on risk management if things don't go ideally as we would like to uh in terms of being able to fund this project um i noticed for example that there's a mention of uh applying for gla grants um you know we're being led to believe that there'll be a lot of building uh going on around the country so presumably presumably there'll be a lot of pressure on gla grants from other boroughs so they're these known unknowns they're probably unknown unknowns out there as well and the paper is you know really sketchy on that so i'd like a bit you know if possible i realize that it's still early days but if i could hear a little bit more from either the cabinet member or the leader of the council or officers about how that risk will be managed and should the funding not be available through the expected sources what fallback plan is there so that residents can be feel reassured that this will happen as planned and there's no cross subsidization involved in this is there so okay so so on the wider housing market point so whilst the delivery model hasn't been determined it's probably almost certainly going to be a self-delivery model so if you like the risk to this scheme in the early stages is the council council's ability to build and deliver big blocks of housing and it's got a track record of doing that over a number of years so to that extent and because private sector subsidy is such a small assumption you know i think we can see you know a good medium-term plan in terms of delivery of housing on site in terms of grant and i think the cabinet member might be closer to this my understanding is that discussions with the mayor's office have been really really positive about grant and securing that and again that in part goes back to you know the the council's track record of delivery in in a meeting um with the gla they described the council as a as a surefire delivery partner so if you like if we say give us some grant and we're going to deliver some units they can do that with a degree of confidence which they can't necessarily do with that many boroughs in london yeah i mean what i'd add um and it's nice to see the rumsfeld quotes early on in the meeting um uh is is you know one of the key distinctions is that this like andy says this might be a joint venture so we have an element of control over this which actually frees us up massively because if there are external shocks then we have more control because it's our own build program it's our own you know we will be contracting builders to deliver to a certain spec you know it's it's basically straight up funding we're not there's not speculative element really in it um and on your point about the kind of possible competing interests i mean i see us as a major partner of a new government that needs to deliver new social housing so i'm fairly confident that this will be precisely the kind of scheme that the government will be looking to offer offer grants towards the ballot process which we banged about for years is precisely to get access to that grant because without the ballot you don't get access to the grant um now you know you're right that there are always kind of possible external shocks that we can't account for one of the things i was very adamant about is that we came with clear percentages and numbers for you to hold us to account on going forward you know that's what i always used to do when i was in opposition you'd say we're going to do this and then hold us to account on it these are ambitious affordable housing targets you know in the current market this is an ambitious scheme on net additional social rent housing something that i'm obviously very passionate about so in some ways we're giving you a very early high watermark that we will have to be held to account on um so you know that's that's a challenge on us but it's a it's a challenge that we should take because i think it's the right thing to do and the uh the grant has kept pace with the uh inflation within the housing and construction industry hasn't it so yeah yeah just about yeah yeah okay sorry council mr graham thanks chair um if you look at page 24 86 uh the proposals require significant engagement but i ask you is this is this realistic you know when you when council dickerton is talking about sorry council council mrs graham sorry can you bring your mic closer that's it yeah thank you thank you um looking at paragraph 86 um how realistic or confident are you that um that the early well early 25 2025 will be when you're planning submission when it's now july august and you have this massive consultation with east and west the bigger community and also the consultations and also the six monthly ballot i mean of course we want this to be as best as we could but i think that's pretty tight don't get it yeah don't worry 2028 that that's just for the rahampton hub block a so it's really important that we thought in order for residents to see that we are going to get something done in our first term that block a was brought forward because residents have been waiting so long and it's such a kind of symbolic building of like boarded up uh you know the promises of the master plan so what we've done is we're actually going to have a separate planning application for the rahampton community hub or block a the entrance to the estate and you're right that is separate from the process of the housing the shops the retail and the demolition um because that is a much longer timeline um so that's that's that that's what's going on in the report there could i ask another question yeah councilman um paragraph i think 91 not 91 it's minstead gardens i'm looking at um they have have they've actually not been they don't they're not loved for want of a better word and i'm just wondering you know where they are going to be uh as regards to the thermal capacity and the regeneration of them because it's desperately needed so i visited them on uh friday um and they were concerned about their homes being demolished and their homes aren't in the demolition zone um and they did bring up the issue of epc and the challenges we have around conservation because of the epc absolutely yeah and proposals have been brought forward about moving kitchens and living rooms and they were very upset about that and that has been parked and that's not happening so we had a long discussion about possible plans and one of the things from that meeting on on friday was for me to go off and talk to officers about what it would look like to try and bring the epc rating of those bungalow homes as part of as part of the regeneration but i haven't i haven't got an answer for you but we have engaged with them and met with the with the residents there any other question councilor tiller ah thank you chair um well um as many people may know i became politically active precisely because of the old conservative master plan and you know i don't wish to puncture the nice um cooperative conciliatory tone we've had so far or to speak ill of the dead but um i do feel i have to start by stressing the differences between what came before what's what we were going to get before labor took power in monsworth and what is on offer here um so in albrook house we have a magnificent iconic building a brutalist icon that people come from all over the world to see of a piece with the slab lots on highcliff drive which are listed and albrook house nearly itself became listed and i hope someday it will be and um yes um that's uh an icon that's been featured on council materials but we were going to lose it and now we're not and that it's going to be refurbished and i'm hugely proud of that and the same goes for um the uh purely residential blocks on the south side of daneby avenue also due to be refurbished rather than demolished and so the cultural and environmental impact of that is amazing and better than anything i could have hoped for um so yes so that the past two years have been very busy and i got to play tribute to everyone involved in particular my fellow rohampton councillors councillor jenny eights councilor graham henderson who are here here today um um i mean not to be too immodest but you know i have a further stake in rohampton that actually no other councillor in the borough does since i'm also a lifelong resident and council tenant and tenants champion furthermore and so this has been a huge focus for me and um a passion project for me and has taken up a huge amount of my time and i'm proud to contribute it to to the plans that we see today and well some may uh say um that the change in language from regeneration to renewal is unnecessary but personally i'm quite glad of it because the auto estate is not a time lord or a worm that's been cut in two it's a unique place with some problems that the officers have looked at but also a lot of strengths manifested by the amazing work that's done in community organizations too many to mention here or single out but um anybody who lives in rohampton will know the organizations i mean and if anyone thinks this is a very localized issue um or of no relevance to the rest of the borough i'd like to stress that the renewal will be a flagship program that will set the tone for how the borough provides for council tenants and helps cut down the huge waiting list for council housing that we have inherited furthermore the proportion of council housing and more broadly affordable housing um we've gone from three quarters private to um over 40 council housing and total affordable housing um close to sixty percent and that's a brilliant example that um we can follow for the rest of the borough and i hope will be followed by the whole country thank you chair thank you council tiller council can see uh thank you chair uh i've got a couple of questions the first one is about uh uh compulsory purchase orders uh so these are mentioned uh in the paper uh but again there's there's there's not a a great amount of detail about um uh what they refer to um why they might be needed um and also you know they're quite controversial in their way uh you know they they relate to private property rights so it's very important that there are checks in place so if you could have a little bit more information about the cpos what they might be used for and should they be used um what what types of property is it predominantly uh i expect it's predominantly retail properties and would that information be shared with all members of the committee and would would we be consulted on on any cpos that may take place mister i mean compulsory purchase is an unavoidable fact of regeneration of this scale um the process is heavily governed um by legislation in terms of the checks and balances because as you say goes to some sort of fairly significant human rights issues around uh you know appropriating people's property so on both schemes probably since 2014 we've been acquiring on cpo terms which are better than normal terms voluntarily so part of our offer has been and will continue to be if you want to sell to us and you're a resident and it's your choice you get market value plus 10 percent and disturbance costs the process for cpo comes off the back of a implementable planning consent and and a clear proposal that the scheme can be funded the decision to make the cpo is one for the executive so it goes to committee and it's scrutinized in a normal way the assets that we're acquiring as a last result are listed and it will be a mix it will be anything that we have we've been unsuccessful in acquiring by negotiation now inevitably the balance of that is likely to be residential but you can't really sort of second guess if there are any uh objectives to the cpo and there's normally at least one it then goes to a public inquiry so in terms of public scrutiny and the ability of the council's decision to be you know the council needs to take the decision properly and is then properly accountable for that decision the alternative without cpo is that you you just can't do development at this scale but there is a possibility because the plan is you know working to quite a tight time scale so if those cpos are challenged then presumably that that could affect the time scale in terms of delivery this program doesn't go beyond the ballot process because we haven't got a proposal when we've got a firm proposal and we've cleared the ballot there will be a program that goes with that that will factor in the impact of cpo you know so you tend to do a best and worst case scenario so we don't assume that it's not going to be needed we tend to work on the on the contrary assumption and we will try and focus phasing maybe will be determined by land that is available to clear might be a factor in the order that we well but will be a factor in the order that we do think so there's stuff we can build to avoid cpo that's what we will do to be getting on with stuff uh just a question about balance what is the minimum percentage of residents that would constitute a valid representation of a majority opinion on the estate i mean as we've seen in elections it's possible for something to be rejected by 66 of the population but still be seen to be the overwhelming choice of the people so uh it is a valid question because you know 10 of uh residents could give you know 60 70 thumbs up but 90 haven't spoken so um yeah uh yeah so how will how will the ballot uh be seen as a valid uh representation of residents views i think there'll be an argument about what was rejected actually the election but uh yeah so there is there's no turnout requirement and it's and it's a simple majority but clearly given the huge effort that the council's putting into the engagement process it will want the highest possible number of people to vote and the highest possible number of people to vote yes so where proposals have got public support across london boroughs are maybe hitting 78 turnout with similar figures in terms of people saying yes so you you are demonstrating you know an absolute majority in favor of the proposals now i can't guarantee that but i that is the objective if we're not getting high turnout and you know very high if it came back in it was 51 and 20 the people voted you know i think we might reflect about whether that demonstrated a mandate so we're committed to getting the vote out and to get any yes vote or we will be fantastic uh councilor gavinia thank you thank you uh chair i've got a couple of questions one on the something councilor mrs graham raised on paragraph 86 a question on finance but just something that on the electoral stuff that still got just responded to i mean earlier i heard a pen of praise of along the lines of saying alton today universe tomorrow if that is the ambition of the council and of course i applaud that will we not have an ambition to have a turnout higher than any other comparable ballot because i think you know it's in everyone's interest that maximum participation and and maximum support is given because this is a 15-20 year build out program and you don't really want a sizable number of people feeling a bit sad about the outcome so it's just a just a just a plea and turning 86 i'm a bit surprised counselor dickardom's reply because i thought that that was a time scale for all of it so i had some detailed questions on that then the planning submission just for the small element of it will presumably sit within the master plan which presumably will have been consulted on and agreed and therefore be a a document of some interest and import where does that fit in in this timeline and second thing is that between approval of planning which is the end of 2025 and start of site six start on site in six months it doesn't mention procurement and we don't actually at the moment how how we are going to deliver this so the procurement would vary depending on how we're going to deliver it so i'm just a big flummoxed by by by that timeline and just on that narrow bit but also how that timeline fits in with the wider wider planning permission implementation procurement and all of that so perhaps a question answer that and then i just want to come on finances which would be my last contribution if i missed they would be pleased to hear okay thank you thank you i suppose you're quite experienced at setting uh um deadlines for this but um yeah so this section solely relates to the rahanta community hub which will be taken as a standalone planning application so it won't form an implementation of the pre-existing um master plan there is a detailed program that sits beneath these dates that factors in the procurement is that you you know you start procurement of a contractor well in advance of the pack decision so that you're ready to go to minimize um the construction period and again this is a self-built project 40 homes and a and a community building it's a large scheme but it's by nowhere near the largest scheme that we have delivered or or will deliver so the detail program beneath this you know i've got confidence that those dates we've summarized that but those dates are achievable including procurement yeah and i'm going to jump in and say that this cutting this off from the master plan is very resident led like this is directly due to the constant referral at every single consultation public meeting one-on-one stakeholder engagement that block a needs to come forward fast and we need to show movement on the ground on it so the reason for that separation outside of the master planning process is precisely to respond to that resident engagement um on the ballot i am absolutely thrilled to hear you are now converts to the ballot and care about the turnout of said ballot given that you refuse to do a ballot in the first place so i'm happy to take on any challenges but of course uh it's a you know it's a it's a brave new world for the conservative administration to support a ballot on the Alton regeneration after all these years um and i look forward to uh you guys helping us turn the vote out for a yes vote on these plans um so i look forward to that in a couple years time well that would depend on how much of our support you willingly sort of want us to give you because i think there are lots of engagements being talked about over the next year we would like to be able to say that we have some say in it some participation in it but if we're just simply going to be rolled out at the moment when you want to have a ballot to say well this is a bipartisan approach well i think you might not have earned the goodwill so i hope that over the next year you're going to work hard to earn our goodwill just as you're going to work hard to earn the goodwill of the residents and just let me go to the the question of the finances in paragraph one one one two six that talks about various projects and the various sums of money i there's no um indication in this paper of what those projects are very significant capital projects from the general fund and say to me i mean you don't have to have it now but i would like some details of what is it that that money is going to go towards um and and i had put in in the chat a question about what will council do to attract a wider range of shopping offer for the area so hopefully somebody will cover that cover that could um could that be answered by email councilor gavinia they certainly the question of the projects could be answered by by email and if you don't have an answer to the the shopping thing equally i'm happy to have it in in in writing later on um i mean i can i can briefly outline that the the shopping plans were directly linked to the issue of meanwhile space for the existing shops and some of the most loved existing shops right so by providing a new shopping front down the side of dave avenue that wasn't previously and this this was councilor tiller's work is we give a one transfer for those who want so there's no two-year waiting period because we were worried that those businesses would go bust or would move us where or you know we'd have a regeneration where those who had stuck it out in the community during the hard times didn't benefit from the good times so the aim is for that single transfer of course some of those are local businesses some of those are franchise chains you know that that we'll be able to get into the detail of it we've also had feedback at the hampton partnership last night that obviously there's a great desire amongst local community groups for there to be a kind of uh you know what was the word kind of community-led uh entrepreneurship scheme where you might have a peppercorn rent for local entrepreneurs or for you know local community spaces to rent out so the devil obviously will be in the detail and we can't yeah we're not going to have the name of which shops are in it but what we can be very clear on to those shops that are currently existing is that they you know those community shops will be offered that one stop move over from their old shop unit into a new one before the other shop units are demolished um so that's our way of kind of protecting uh some of those existing businesses whilst also obviously increasing the overall footprint of shopping and the final thing to say is obviously the large shop is again one of the biggest feedbacks from the community and the aim is to plan is to have that underneath where the old library is so that's a rough plan because that's a rough place where we could put it but community engagement is very clear they need to have a larger shopping uh shopping unit but okay i mean we'll welcome that i mean perhaps the rest of the ambition and delivery on on the shopping range and offer could be fleshed out in correspondence with me that'd be helpful yeah i think that can be done yeah okay uh um mr moore uh members cancer given his point about the uh enlisted capital projects i mean some of those uh specifically they've got a capital element are on page 28 29 uh sorry i'm going to line by line in front of me in terms of the numbers to projects but um i can give more detail on that via email as you've suggested chair that'd be helpful that's fine um i think council austin was first counselor vera so this borough has a serious um issue with overcrowding and i believe that's 47 households on the alton are considered overcrowded and i think the officer said that's just over 25 um so with the new council homes that are going to be built would they are they going to be built to specifically address the issues of overcrowding um with the larger properties going to families are already currently waiting part of the council's regeneration offer has always been um to move tenants once and if they are overcrowded to move them to a home that's suitable for their needs so the answer is yes um i think that any the additional stock i think as the leader said will be allocated as far as possible to meet local needs to try and keep you know that community together and free up other units so yeah they're very very targeted units which is one of the challenges of designing blocks around specific people um rather than just doing a sort of a standard unit mix counselor es i have a very detailed question it's in relation to the work on deafeninger fields and partly is because i asked this same question at the planning application which we granted and it's to do with the fact that although there are all sorts of marvelous things proposed for that green space there are no public loos uh specified and for a very large area of open space i would have thought it was necessary if we're talking about access for all people with small babies elderly people with weak bladders we can't necessarily get back to the top of our flat if it's at the top of a block or would want to go to the pub across the road or would want to go or able to go to the um the hub no i don't mean the hub i mean the activities owner nobody gave me an answer at the planning committee although everyone looked so surprised that there wasn't a public loo but one of the tenants that jenny introduced me to after the meeting said that she had asked the same question some years ago and got no answer either so is anywhere an answer about public loos in that open space so i mean it's never been part of the proposals i suspect because of the way the space is used it's a it's a general amenity space it's not intensively used like a recreation facility there are toilet facilities at both the cafes and the library that the that the public can use um and it's a listed garden so there are some severe logistical proposals um yeah what's it placing a new toilet what i think i'll do for that is i'll come back with a kind of where we think the ones that are being built into like you say the hub the alton activity center and then distances access points and so there's at least the accessibility um i don't know the word for it but kind of uh yeah my my point was that i think it's going to be so nice it's going to be a destination for a lot of estates around i mean i would certainly have gone there if i lived the outside of danebury avenue because it looks as though it'd be lovely um so but thank you um counselor council austin thank you very much councilor white firstly just i'd like to humbly apologize to you for being my lateness unfortunately our new prime minister didn't consult with the council before um putting a state hoping of parliament today and i got caught in the city before coming out um so i do humbly apologize for that and for my rudeness um i'm as everyone knows my first day so i'm going to be the one that asked the stupid questions i'm sure this evening but so pleased to apologize for that i think um first of all and there's been a lot talked about the community bus and i'm a details person there's working in property there's a lot of broad overview but very little detail and i'm sure we will move on to that in future meetings but the community bus is something but what firstly i'll do them all together firstly what other transport initiatives are being proposed secondly um why have we reduced the number of units by 445 um you know because 58 percent of 1108 units of affordable housing is bigger than than thing and thirdly um the ballots which um and balloting and things is um something that's obviously i'm exceptionally interested in and will the cabinet member um confirm now if he'll extend that ballot to all schemes large and small that are up for development in the borough so there's three questions that are starting with the transport he's going to deal with the transport uh yeah members uh i'm conscious the cabinet members transport is on my on my uh right hand shoulder so um just top lines on it i mean we know buses are essential uh to the life blood and the movement around alton uh we know it's a disconnected it feels like a disconnected community the bus services are simply not reliable enough they're at the end of the route and that makes them frail they lack resilience so one of the key messages from uh leading members from the community is help us uh achieve a more reliable bus service that starts with tfl they're the operators so um working with other with cabinet lead colleagues like david tidley who's a you know tower of strength in this borough to to advocate the council's position seeking to get a more reliable more robust uh core bus service um so so that's a that's a job of detail it's a we've got some really powerful data to support that lobbying um around a number of bus journeys that continue beyond clapham junction for example so a strong base of lobbying and that will continue for some time powered by data working obviously at political level but a managerial level as well a couple of other significant bus projects you've already highlighted the community uh community bus um seeking to tailor that offer to um you know the greatest need to to tailor that around what residents need most we know that um shopping is a key consideration so how we shape that uh community bus into the scheduling services frequency drop-offs pickups leaders already mentioned the uh dual use of the university bus uh key frustration for residents seeing that do return journeys from the station every day empty good partnership work with the university uh to engender their collaboration and uh really pleased that we we managed to get that one across the line a two-year pilot project uh part funded by the council we're making a contribution uh to to that offer they're looking to get that started uh in september so i think those are those are you know the key key bus projects other good work going on around permeability i think mr alga has already mentioned uh some points there in the earlier presentation cycling active travel clearly wayfinding to the alton so extending a crossroad making it easier for um for cycle journeys to the alton for those who've uh don't make that journey very often i've been one of those recently i can pinpoint some of the some of the areas we can improve the signage so it's the job of detail i think you mentioned the detail word so those are those projects that spring to mind those are the ones we want to get moving on quickly they're early impactful projects there's things we can get rolling on quickly thanks members yeah i'll take the the last two points so if you go to appendix five which is on page 42 you'll get the raw breakdown of numbers so on your maths uh about percentages i remember thatcher did that with the parliament where she would move the hand up and down this scheme is very specific on net additionality so you'll see that the the drop in overall figures is directly overwhelmingly linked to the private cell units whereas affordable housing has gone from 261 in the previous to 385 that's a net additional on social rent housing to 130 from minus one in the previous scheme and a decrease in private sale from 847 down to 278 so that the shift is explicitly designed to increase the net additional affordable housing so it's not that by reducing the percentage we're artificially inflating we are going gung for home on net additional affordable units and that reduction is coming from private sale which we very categorically believe is the right thing to do when it comes to public land on the point about the ballot that is a statutory as you well know that is to do with a statutory position on when you demolish people's homes the thousand homes program which is what i think you're referring to is not demolishing anyone's home so we can't give a ballot if we decided to ballot on every single planning applications committee that came we wouldn't even be able to do roof extensions so um uh you know i think but i think you i understand the point you're making thank you so no other questions so can we say oh sorry uh council convenient um thanks just as i started um can i just say that we give you what i may call qualified support for going ahead there are lots of matters of detail in this paper which um i and my colleagues might want to raise in correspondence subsequently and and the willingness with which you want to engage with us will determine how much of this qualified support becomes a basis on which we can build build a way forward clearly my concern as somebody who's known the area for a long time would say is that the people all around them have been promised a number of the regeneration or renewal whatever you want to call it uh offers in the past and have been disappointed by a variety of reasons and so on and and i i wish you well in not adding to that level of disappointment and if i can assist yes i will but i think it won't be a blank check from me is what i could tell you and you won't get a blank check from my colleagues either so wish you well but you need to carry on earning our goodwill i'll take your good wishes there um councilor gavinia thank you um so if there's no any more questions can we uh agree to the recommendations at a to m yep okay thank you very much okay so we're now uh going back to the agenda so it's item number four which is the winston york road update and we have a gold paper with this um do we move to discuss the gold paper um yes i'm taking a yes okay and that means that the um oh sorry sorry uh i i don't mean to be rude and interrupt uh before you would finish your sentence there is an open bit of the paper and there is a closed bit of the paper i think this is a very very significant development of a very wide public interest in the virus so i think it behoves the kind of openness and transparency of the council to at least introduce the open bit of the paper in the open part of the meeting and and then then go down the road of a closed discussion otherwise the appearance is that the council is not willing to to share its concerns and debate in anywhere in any shape or form with the public out there so i really do think that very short very brief paper with some introductions and some some uh broad broad comments should be in the public domain if i may put it that way councilor gavin dia um i i completely understand your position my and this is you know this i'm like i'm not wedded to this but for the sake of my own colleagues and i also thought for yours that we could get through the gold bit to make the public bit slightly more informed that was my suggestion that we would we would we would shut down the public gallery have the brief from officers and then it would make the public part rather than if we did the other way around it might be quite confusing for anyone who is trying to understand what's going on okay i accept that i mean i forgive me if i misunderstood i thought i thought that we were going to in a sense have the entirety of debate on this item yeah in the closed agenda but if you're willing to either i think that yeah i think yeah then we'll come back to the public part so rather than just like we pretend the public part doesn't exist and skip straight to gold we do gold first and then return back to the public parks i think then the public part will actually be worth a bit more because people will understand what does that make sense yeah cool great okay so the proposal is that under section 108 in brackets for the local government act 1972 members of public and press be excluded from the meeting whilst item 17 is being considered because it is likely that exempt information as described in paragraph three of part one of the schedule 12a so the act would be disclosed to them if they were present and it is considered that in all the circumstances of the case the public's interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest of disclosing the information do i have a seconder for that Councillor Varafraj thank you is everyone happy with that yep okay good point okay so we are back in open session and so as Councillor Dickie Dumas just pointed out we need to conclude on the um winch dani regeneration paper um so we are now going to the open paper and uh are there any questions on that one please um i think um sorry chair for the members of the public who might be wanting to know something about it um i think an officer needs to give us a brief paragraph as to what this is all about and then we can do the questions otherwise it'll look like no questions we've voted it i'm just really talking about council's reputation really in here entirely in your hands okay so is there a question right okay yeah yeah this introduction will be far briefer than the last one this provides a bit of uh recent background um to where we are with the JV um the progress since the last business plan um it sets out or reminds us um what the JV's objectives are which are hardwired um into the legal agreements and we're almost entirely based on the council where they are the non-financial ones are entirely based on the council requirements that are determined before procurement um so the report asks committee to note those objectives and also to note some complementary council objectives and they're consistent with the JV i mean it briefly touches upon the performance issues a you know in a in a broadest sense so the recommendation asks the committee to agree those the council's objectives provide dedicated delegated authority for JV board members to be replaced so the council's currently operating with two board members since i left the council and we think we need a full complement and to note the con to note the contents of the report and the the gold report confidential report you've just considered thank you is there any questions on that thank you chair um i welcome that contribution from mr elgar and um entirely in agreement with council's objectives as set out in paragraph 11 um after all those were the objectives that have been uh a cornerstone of the council's position on the JV ever since it was set up so entirely in agreement with that i just just want to briefly ask the question about the three or five additional or as mr elgar just said complementary additional objectives um is is kind of um how they're not i can't see the reasoning that i can't see the direct link with the existing objectives and these new ones perhaps you could just slightly expand on on where have they come from and then to you chair a very specific question which is about to be um there would be a new board member under to be perfectly understandable uh but will you will you undertake to share with not just me but all the members of the committee the full complement of council's representation on the JV board once that appointment is made okay so i mean in terms of the JV's objectives i think i probably said they were they were drafted by the council before we procured a development partner and were in used to inform the early master planning work um and some of those have test stood the test of time and practice better than others and i think what this really does is sort of flesh them out and makes um explicit um what's perhaps implicit around the council requiring a pace of delivery about the scheme being affordable because it was never envisaged that we would put additional funding in um and to flesh out the sort of the JV's commitments in terms of meanwhile uses um and commitment to the community so i don't think they're new i think they're um they build on the existing um objectives um based on experience okay thanks very much for that and then chair a question to you that i asked and this is on the decisions on replacement of the council's board representatives be delegated to the chief executive in consultation with the executive director of finance um yes so when that's done could could we all members of the committee be given the details of the full complement of council's members on the jd yeah thank you yeah okay um okay so can we agree to support the recommendations a to c in this paper yep okay good okay just remind us that we've got less than 45 minutes now to finish the other papers but if we now move to the uh ombudsman paper um i just want to say thank you andy algar for coming back from retirement to help us through that long session on two very important parts of this council's business we uh it's been a pleasure working with you for these last two years likewise and it's a pleasure to um uh to have been here tonight and to work for for both parties over a number of years um and if these decisions aren't necessarily full stops but they are a a way forward hopefully appreciate it thanks okay so item seven uh they were and uh derek johnson yes thank you thank you chairman um committee this this paper is thankfully quite a rare um event um it concerns the ombudsman's finding and issuing of what's called a public report which is their their highest sanction um to is one way of describing it um it concerns events uh of some vintage now uh the application the homeless application was made in september 21 so um but you know um the failings the 12 failings identified by the ombudsman accepted by the council touched um in the main on the housing service um the responsibility of this committee there were delays in the assessment of the applicant's um application leaving her you know unsure about what was happening there were findings made by the ombudsman that the accommodation provided to her and her disabled child was unsuitable and then there was a wider point and i think this is partly why the compensation ordered by the ombudsman was very a very significant amount was that there were also internal failings in liaison and joint working between ourselves and the children's services department so this paper and this report is a rare occurrence i've been with the authority for over 20 years now this is the second time that we've had such a report and and just to put it in context and a bit of a bridge into the next paper you know we are talking about dealing with last year 3 000 homelessness approaches 1200 placements into temporary accommodation so this is thankfully a rare um but serious uh finding by the ombudsman in their role as our regulator so the failures are regretted for a full apology has been issued to the household the compensation has been paid and the paper through um paragraphs eight down highlight the work that the various teams have taken to address the recommendations and the learning um we are confident because of those measures as set out that these issues should not recur obviously in this world we can't give an absolute guarantee of that but we are confident that the measures taken will you know very significantly mitigate against these problems some of which were structural in the sense that as described in the paper and in in the following paper these events were historic they were before the investment in the service and some were a matter of process as identified in the ombudsman's report which is set out at the appendix so i think this is here tonight and going to the executive to fulfill the requirement that this paper is done in public and that the council's committee and in particular the executive are fully cited on it and can consider the steps taken in response to the faults found i think that's all i wanted to say by way of introduction i don't know if my colleague wishes to add to that uh good good evening everybody deborah johnson uh assistant director for sending inclusion and no i've got nothing to add i think you outlined it perfectly thank you okay any questions council rigby um yeah just a couple of questions one is um are we assured that miss x and her family are now adequately housed and her children are receiving the right educational support and second one is what changes have been made in the process to ensure this never happens again thank you councillor so yes the ombudsman has on behalf of miss x has um accepted that uh we have responded appropriately and fully to the faults found and the remedies uh recommended so the compensation has been paid um the client the best way of saying it is miss x is as i understand it satisfied with the outcome of her complaint um and in turn there's been no further complaint around what we're currently providing the issues is she is she properly housed yes now yes she's housed in suitable accommodation at the moment um as i mentioned the paper goes through the the the changes we've made um to ensure that these problems don't uh recur in particular if we look at paragraph 12 whereas before we were leaving um the identification of a child with special educational needs in the household and particularly whether they had the ehcp to the individual officer to discuss as part of their interviews with the household we've now hired hardwired that and it's asked of every applicant as paragraph 12 says is around only about four percent of children have such a plan so the majority of the time the household that's applying will say no but we are asking that question and where is answered by the the parent and clearly they would know that prompts the liaison with our colleagues in children's services to make sure that where we are placing into temporary accommodation and particularly in another area those referral pathways the transfer of the plan etc flow smoothly councilor miss graham have you got your mic on i i i welcome the answer that you've given councilor rigby in the fact that when a parent says that to you you immediately contact the um education the children's services whereas that was a weakness before because that is an area that is very important no thank you thank you chair okay councilor gavinia thank you chair um two two or three things one is that i note that the paper is not going to go to children's services but i mean i can understand the timetable has gone a bit uh skewed with because of elections but i'm assuming that the children's services department has given it the same degree of the serious consideration as we have and the scale of compensation awarded is quite quite significant i know um this is not run-of-the-mill compensation slap on the wrist type of compensation for mom woodsman in my own experience it's been some time and i probably can't remember anytime when five figure sum has been awarded by the ombudsman so i think we need to as members we need to note the seriousness of it so my specific point is about the ehcp and that's really where there are issues about ehcp not being up to date and timely at the education end and how does uh housing make sure that that where there is any doubt about the appropriateness or update up-to-dateness of the ehcp they use their endeavor best endeavors to to to to break that log jam there was no question in the lg's lg's report that the ehcp wasn't up to date it was around the transfer of the ehcp to the second council that was queried but we were found not at fault in relation to that no i appreciate that i appreciate that but i think in the lessons learned and particularly in the context of where families with children with ehcp are involved um as a part of future what steps are we making sure we take where education hasn't done it because they often don't there are delays i understand that but when there are those delays and there is homelessness as well that we use our best endeavors to try and break break some sort of outcome on that that's i just want an assurance i'm not actually getting blame or anything of that sort yeah we undertook sufficient training there were to there were some ongoing training taking place with the housing department we've also changed our paperwork so both both services have changed their paperwork we've also closed the gap between education housing and early help to make sure that all of those services have the same information on all of their forms to make sure these children don't drop through the gap um so so you know we've we've undertaken everything that the lgo asked us to do thank you very much okay thank you uh council chair um just to answer council giving this point on the compensation um the ombudsman's uh rationale for the high amount of compensation awarded is set out paragraph 100 and basically the bulk of it 10 000 pounds is based on their calculation that 500 pounds a month for the 20 months they found the accommodation provided by the department to be unsuitable would be the factor so 10 and that's higher as they note there than their 150 to 350 tariff normally applied because of the facts of the case so that's why you get nearly 14 000 pounds of compensation but i think this case is um and the facts of the case are rare so i think viewed through that lens it's perhaps unsurprising on the basis of the faults found that the compensation should be uh higher than we may have seen in the past thank you counselor kashane uh thank you my question is about how best practice is shared between different local authorities because it seems inconceivable to me that something like this hasn't happened elsewhere and it has happened elsewhere you know why was it allowed to happen here why weren't lessons learned from that and you know why haven't we been able to learn those lessons and presumably in the future other local authorities may make a similar mistake and how is our current best practice which we've learned from the mistakes that have been made how is that going to be communicated with all the local authorities so that all the unfortunate people aren't placed in the same position as mrs x thank you counselor um it's it's fair question and i think it's also fair to say the ombudsman in recent times both the housing ombudsman the local government social care ombudsman have been more proactive in publishing their findings so they they send out a monthly compendium of cases and part of the i'm kind of speaking for them which is not really my role but part of their purpose i think in requiring a report like this is to maximize the coverage that their findings in this type of case get so they are circulating this information more more widely through digital means and so on we monitor it as does the corporate complaints team so where we see issues in other councils we will read them we will sort of either breathe a sigh of relief that that couldn't happen here or we'll pick it up and think actually that's a weakness in our own processes there isn't a systematic way that the boroughs come together that i know of and analyze these findings it's left to individual boroughs to pick up on the the broader distribution of their findings um as i've mentioned thank you okay no more questions so uh can we support the recommendations a and b yeah okay thanks so moving back uh to item number six which is the housing annual resources paper date of birth yes thank you thank you chair um so this paper for uh particularly for members new to the committee comes at this time each year it's got a number of purposes um it gives you a backwards look to the previous financial year how do we do what are our numbers um but it also takes a forward look into the now current year and importantly sets forecasts for the council's use of temporary accommodation for statutory uh under its statutory duties it uh seeks support for the lettings plan so um and the forecast for rehousing opportunities so how many properties do we think we're going to get of what type of what size and that factors in a range of sources of supply so the new build under the thousand home scheme um relets um you know falling either opportunistically or as a result of transfer private sector properties that we might might be pulling in to help us address homelessness issues and so on um so just to give a whistle stop tour of the paper uh starting with the homelessness position you will know that we are in um the eye of the storm of a homelessness crisis as many have called it paragraph nine here reports the facts that uh numbers in temporary accommodation in england are the highest they've ever been or at least since they've been recorded in a systematic way by by the ministry um and of course that problem is is much much more chronic in london where the 32 london boroughs provide 56 of all temporary accommodation in england so that really shows it is a london focused issue um the paper goes on to talk about what happened last year we were successful in slowing the rate of increase so paragraph 14 shows that our increase last year in the use of temporary accommodation went up by six percent compared to eleven percent before and twenty twenty seven percent in the year before that that is on the back of the investment made in large part in the summer of 22 when additional posts were added and it's given us the chance and this sort of does overlap with the the findings of the ombudsman it's given us a chance in particular to reduce our running caseload and that is critical to allowing the officers to have sufficient time and space to do prevention work to deal with people in a more detailed way just that extra time allows those those improvements um i won't go through all the all the information provided in here um in terms of the current year we are predicting a decrease in the use of temporary accommodation modest decrease of and this is the tables uh table seven and eight at around paragraphs uh 68 and 69 modest decrease of net 77 um i say modest but in context that is quite an achievement if we achieve it would be quite notable um almost all borrowers are seeing increases um many borrowers are seeing a increased use of bed and breakfast in contravention to legal duties we and the teams have actually reduced our use of bed and breakfast in the last year and we keep it very low and we do not breach the the legal requirement not to use it for families for longer than six weeks um flipping over to the lettings position last year we got 1200 just over 1200 properties which was i think um getting close to the forecast um this year we are predicting and this is table 13 and yeah table 13 we are predicting just under 1400 units of accommodation becoming available just by the by one of the advantages of this committee slipping uh to today's day is we've now had three months of activity and that that forecast is holding up quite well after three months of the year we'd had just 25 of the year we'd had 24 of the forecast so that's looking uh okay at this point of the year um so the uh it's forecast to 1381 properties from all sources it is proposed that they be distributed across the housing queues in line with the lettings plan which is summarized table 13 uh under paragraph one two three um and then the paper moves on for a number of additional staffing matters as the paper sets out we are seeing continuing pressure and challenges both locally and more broadly in london um hopefully the additional staffing recommended are justified so looking at the property management team as an example paragraphs 136 onwards in the table there you will see the the very large increase um factored a doubling of the of of the portfolio the team manage and we are proposing two officers there so hopefully in that theme uh you you will you can be satisfied that these new posts are essential if we are to maintain the progress we have made um and that i think chair is the summary of the paper um should mention that we are in an effort to obtain more um least accommodation more accommodation from private sector landlords proposing enhanced uh incentives and packages to landlords these are all set out in the tables around table 16 17 18 and 19 and these will be critical to bring in um new and more economic accommodation because as said out in the director of finance reports uh comments we are seeing severe pressure upward pressure inflationary pressure on the rates we are paying for what we call licensed accommodation or nightly paid accommodation where the market is super hot and it's putting severe pressure on the budgetary position so hopefully chair that's a sufficient introduction uh myself or my colleagues miss nazir miss chote uh two heads of service responsible for these areas we'll be happy to answer any questions members may have thank you thank you i think if we can keep our eye on the time and keep our um questions snappy and sharp for um from now um councillor mcloud uh thank you uh thank you i've been on um on this committee since i was elected so that's what six years and it feels fairly relentless you know that these the numbers of people we've got in temporary accommodation keep going up and all that sort of thing it feels fairly relentless so to see the forecast saying a reduction i actually find that quite pleasantly surprising is this when was the last time we had a forecast reduction like that don't take this as entirely accurate i would think you are looking at at least a decade that's been the reality so you're going back a significant period of time councillor mrs graham thank you um following on from councillor mcloud um you put 12 000 pounds into an initiative haven't you um when did it begin and did um i suppose it started in in april i suppose what i really want to know is how how things are going on and is it being successful sorry because it's a very it's in paragraph 162 you get unless i'm up a gantry it's i've got one five two as a result the council sees reduction the number of landlords and and you are giving 12 000 pounds as an initiative um to try and increase the visibility of letting schemes and that's in 162. 13 months that we and it's been an ongoing campaign so we've been doing a soft campaign on social media so it's been a constant campaign that we've been doing and it's it yields a lot of interest but some we've only had to take up as a result of that spend so hence that's why we wanted to look at the incentives because it looks like what landlords would like is higher incentives higher rents because it's a very challenging market out there for landlords and for in terms of mortgage changes so that's we're trying lots of different things and getting lots of different feedback from landlords as a result but we were trying to make our campaign a lot more visible we had them up on boardings and we had them all and we've had campaigned via twitter and analysis of what makes landlords come to us and even all that analysis we did we had more people coming to us looking for properties rather than giving us properties so it's kind of ongoing we're seeing what works the best we looked at all our leaflets we look to see what colors we looked at language so we're looking at everything and it's a constant review of what we're trying to do so can i just say have you had some successes with this new initiative which is welcomed they with the campaign so we had about two three uptake interest in that we've attended landlord shows it's just challenging so it's been very limited success considered how much we've spent yeah go ahead um one three six uh property management teams page um 70 i'm looking at the shed at the ssa with the boroughs you've got richmond and wandsworth when i read this it looks as if the hostels and properties acquired under private sector um the two full-time equivalent staff which you are you know adding to the the team are they for wandsworth only or how much are they um their time spent in richmond i'd like to get clarification because to me wandsworth is wandsworth and with your two full-time equivalents i'd like them in our wandsworth yes thank you thank you uh counselor so um i should have mentioned that the staffing where the staffing proposals before you tonight are for post jointly funded with richmond um that borough has already approved their element of the funding so that's just just for context really for these posts it's done in uh relation to the proportion of properties so that falls 75 percent wandsworth 25 percent richmond so as part of the ssa the golden rule is that you know each borough's budgets are sovereign so we've done that analysis and that's how those posts are split thank you chair um how rich your fourth question so can be very quick yes richmond has it is has a housing association and it's managed not by the council and that's why i also have a confusion in this paragraph i just clarified property management team here only manage temporary accommodation for both borrowers they're not connected with uh permanent rehousing which enrichment as you say is undertaken by the housing association okay counselor gavinia thank you chair um miss velga and mr worth will remember my point about paragraph 53 so when he's got a moment he'll give me those figures um i'd like to turn to um page paragraph 25 where is reference to paper 22 161 which established a fair number of posts and this is a question i've asked before so of the 23 posts established how many have been fully recruited to and what has been the retention record of those uh of those posts thanks counselor um i can't be specific to those posts um but what i can say here now is that those posts when approved were fully filled through the recruitment campaign we did um they were approved effectively in july and we got them out to advert in the august and i think we reported we we had them all filled by kind of september november time something like that um i can't then say because i don't have the information what happened to those individual posts certainly a number of them um my instinct would be maybe half of them are still filled by the people who were appointed originally um our turnover rate um in my area is running at about 14 so that will give you an indication i think um i can ask our hr colleagues to go back and do that quite detailed analysis of you know what happened to the people who were appointed back then um if it would be helpful but hopefully my question but my answer gives some context to to your question so of the 23 are there any vacancies in that section currently yes we're running with vacancies um in in those sections the homelessness prevention team under mr i think has got eight vacancies at the moment out of how many eight out of 29 quite a significant vacancy it is um you know it is it is a perpetual challenge um we get good staff um we train them and then you know uh there is much more movement in the sector than say five years ago um you know people people are more mobile the job has become tougher and part of it and you know have to be honest and this paper highlights it you know the paper references the progress made in the year to reduce caseloads and getting those caseloads down particularly amongst that team is absolutely essential to staff retention if i'm coming into work in that role um and i've got 70 80 cases you know please don't tell me i'm struggling with those because i know i am if i'm coming in and i've got you know 35 40 then i would feel and my managers would feel that i've got a fair chance of of dealing with those cases you know in in a satisfactory way so now that we have reduced the caseload as much as we have as detailed in this paper hopefully uh the churn in that team will reduce we're out to at the moment you know well mr worth i mean i get your point but try to be fair the 23 posts were added because of the same argument you made about the caseload and so on and so members agreed that you could have those numbers you've got those numbers or you'll fail to recruit to that and therefore consequently the caseload is higher than it would be if you've been able to recruit and retain the full 23 complement am i not right uh partially so um but what what what i think you're wrong what i think your commentary missus counselor is that during that period we have seen increased demand so you know it's not a standstill position um you know that that's fact as reported by the numbers um and you know what i would say is when you recruit that many staff as i said we got them in in roughly speaking october november 22 some of whom we went out and appointed on potential and soft skills rather than technical knowledge so there was training um so it's taken us till this time roughly um 15 18 months to work on getting the average caseloads down we've now achieved that and it puts us in in a much better position than we were so i think your comment is fair to an extent but you know i think if your question implies that this should have been done earlier then i think that's where i might respectfully disagree okay um and then paragraph 253 which i had raised you this morning about members inquiry across the two of sss and you said you were going to give us a breakdown of those figures yes so um i was looking earlier to try and find the email which uh would give you those details i will find it um but i haven't found it yet my memory is those 1800 odd members inquiries from the two boroughs were roughly split 1500 from wandsworth councillors and 300 from richmond so um you know i take the point made earlier that in future if we're reporting that we will make it borough specific but those are the rough numbers from from memory and i think i'm there with thereabouts okay council rigby please yeah um so one of the largest temporary accommodation places is in my ward in balham and for for many years we tried to get a launderette there because the families had no way of doing their washing other than paying quite a lot of money as a launderette the children also had nowhere to play just um concrete and so i was delighted that when labour came to power in 2022 we were able to change we were able to change the culture and to bring some facilities could you just tell me how the what the feedback's been on nightingale square please hello yeah thank you thank you i think the feedback has been very good that um as far as i understand the laundry is used on a regular basis and there's been no concerns or no issues and the feedback has been positive thank you councillor vera forage um in paragraph 40 it says at the end of march um there are were a thousand seven hundred fifty one properties available in the private sector market but only five of those properties were within the local housing allowance um could you just explain how the lha has impacted our homelessness figures um it's a matter of lots of commentary um but basically um lha has not kept up with the market it was frozen for many years um and therefore the reach of it um in terms of what properties we were not just us but families facing homelessness and reliant on welfare benefits could secure as dwindled to almost nothing um so it is a big contributory factor into the homelessness position that we find ourselves in both locally and and regionally um and it's something which obviously has attracted a lot of debate and discussion in more recent times can i just ask why the nha was frozen my memory is it was a part of the cuts to public sector funding um at the time okay council austin thank you very much chair um sorry it just pricked my ears up um when you're saying that you incentive scheme and if if my business um paid out four thousand pounds for every landlord we got that would be a significant kpi problem and i'd be bankrupt fairly quickly um i have a stock issue on um and on achieving landlords in the private rented sector but rents have gone up 22 in the last in 23 and 11 so far this year um and demand has increased so why are we um having difficulty getting landlords to come to us here at wandsworth council and and and stick with the private sector uh it's multifaceted council so um we can't compete financially on our current incentives then you have the phenomena well known that a number of private sector landlords choose not to work with tenants who are partially or fully reliant on welfare benefits that's a known fact we know that in this borough rents are high we know that landlords have you know almost infinite choice over who they they let to so what we are looking to do here um is to improve our offer to get more properties in um the incentives are generous but compared to what we are paying for temporary accommodation which can be and often is of very poor quality and very often now as the paper says nearly half of it is out of the borough those incentive rates will still save the council serious amounts of money just to give you an example i saw an email today from one of our housing providers who was offering us a five-bedroom house great it's in luton and they wanted at 135 pounds per night for that property yeah so whatever that adds up to over 900 pounds a week what we could probably charge the occupant who we might put in there in terms of rent would probably be closer to 300 pounds so we'd be losing 600 pounds um a week on that and a five-bedroom household if placed there could be expect to be there for many many years so that's why these incentives may appear generous but financially they stack up and they work and if we can deliver them it will reduce significantly the really serious budget pressures that are outlined in the director of finance comments thank you um can we move to uh agree to support the recommendations a to i no chair sorry no sorry chair on on the recommendations we cannot support the budget variation to establish new posts when the previous experience shows that previously established posts have not been able to recruit to posts yeah um council kavinia council diculum's gonna um say something here but also if we can just tell me which one you don't want to vote against that we can get it's a budget variation yeah can just listen to councilor dickerton first please i just really want to make it very clear to any of the public who are watching that there is a structural issue that has just been articulated by dave worth in which councils are queuing up going bust based on the cost of temporary accommodation because of the structural issue in the homelessness crisis um the paper we just had from the ombudsman report which is a really humbling paper articulates what happens when staff are overworked that investment that we did the moment we came in to increase the number of staff that we have is vital and i think it's really important to notice that it's the backlog that has been dealt with that is really crucial as well as the overall caseload now this job is incredibly difficult we have taken voluntary sector workers down to the putney office to do tours of it when you visit that office you see people in their most difficult state you're often giving them bad news as dave just pointed out you're trying to find five bedroom homes you find out one of them is in luton we have a policy in this council of consent on outside of london but often we're placing people outside of borough which is a very difficult conversation to have it's essential that we are staffing up so that we can secure the overall reduction in temporary accommodation this is the first time in a decade that this paper brought to committee is showing a forecast of negative 77 negative numbers the first time in a decade so i would really suggest that the you know opposition support this paper because this is about trying to deliver in one of the most difficult structural environments that i think local government has ever faced um that would just be my my two cents as the cabinet member okay can you tell me which um item you can't support or a block of items you can't support thank you chair i just just responded counselor council we're running out of time so if you can be really really quick well yes look the additional posts were going to be increased and it was in the pipeline officers will tell you long before the change of administration so i accept the argument you're making but all i'm saying is i'm not prepared to give a consent to spending more money which is a 2.8 while when the previous agreed budget variations have not been fully utilized i think it's about a shot across the bows of getting our processes right and getting some discipline into recruitment and retention that's my challenge and therefore i think reluctantly all i'd say is i'd oppose that the rest of it's fine and then we can move to work then so it's just uh a do you want to vote against to a yeah okay right so um so we uh so can we vote on b to i we're all in favor and so can we vote on a so who's in favor of a who's against okay just two oh three okay and yeah three okay fine chair i know you're coming to the end of the meeting i really am flagging and so i am going to take your leave so thank you very much for your indulgence of me this evening but i really can't get it okay that's great okay can we move on to the next item please which is uh item eight is the leasehold and freehold reform paper and uh yeah i think if we just go straight to questions please questions no questions oh we do have one question very quickly uh how will the council keep leaseholders informed and uh what about private leaseholders sorry can you repeat that i was just wondering what my microphone was doing sorry very quickly so how will council uh how will council keep leaseholders informed about the the changes and the implementation of the changes and is there anything specific to say about private leaseholders not just council leaseholders so obviously this paper is written from the previous government and since then the king the king's speech has included new new information that might be in the new bill but this paper went to the boa residence forum so that's how we're keeping um residents informed and obviously if we if we do another bill with an update on what's in what's in the act then that will also go to the boa residence forum um and this applies more to private leaseholders i would say than ours than our leaseholders in in council housing but equally we it applies to both okay can we note the paper yep okay so moving on to paper item number nine which is the corporate plan um can we go to questions on that council is there a timeline on improving transparency of service charges maybe i can pick that up Ian Stewart would normally be addressing this um yeah we've made quite a lot of progress in this regard i think so um as was mentioned earlier we had a very lively and well-informed discussion at the borough residents forum with presentation from both the director of finance and the director of housing management presentation outlining exactly how our process works the different information that's provided the accuracy of that information the number of challenges that we've received the fact that whenever we've gone to a first-tier tribunal our practices have tended to be endorsed but also acknowledging that it's massively difficult and challenging time for leaseholders with escalating costs and the need to bear that in mind reference made to obviously the changes that we've got to residential leaseholders making repayments and maybe looking at that so as a consequence of all those things a focus group made up of leaseholders from the area housing panels is going to be put together we've already asked for volunteers and we can go through these things in a little bit more detail to make sure that we can make necessary improvements but i suppose in essence one of the things that was quite good to be able to show is that as part of the recent resident survey satisfaction amongst leaseholders is up at 65 percent at the moment and that is remarkable in the current circumstances and in london uh in particular most most other landlords will be down in the 20s and 30s so we're not complacent it's a massive issue but we have made quite a lot of progress and i think with the focus group we'll continue to improve that through regular reports back to the borough residents forum which would also look at stuff like the level of service charge so we did some work again to confirm that our service charges across london for routine uh services are actually considerably lower than every other london borough that we spoke to and half the cost of rsls and probably less than that of the of private sector service charges so ours is about 1100 pounds uh most other boroughs up around 1900 to 2000 and obviously private sector service charges are much higher than that so hopefully that reassures you that we're on it and and improvements will be made in the focus group is made up of leaseholders uh can we support recommendations a to c okay moving on to the final uh paper we've got about 30 seconds before the gear to the gear team comes down but the asset management strategy should we move straight to questions okay so any questions okay so can we support recommendations a to b sorry just very quickly details on damp and mold issues say again can we request details on damp and mold issues away from this uh oh yeah away from this meeting sorry away from this meeting or do you want it now no away from this meeting because we don't yeah can we do that fantastic okay brilliant okay well thanks for your indulgence we've finished just on time so thank you very much bye-bye [BLANK_AUDIO]