Purpose

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Housing Operations outlining the match funding proposal for the Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) Round 3 initiative.

Decision

(i)  To approve the match funding element required of £625,000 through the additional borrowing of £625,000 through the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Capital Programme.

(ii)  To approve expenditure of the full budget for the LAHF scheme.

(iii)  To delegate to the Director of Housing after consultation with and the Executive Director of Enabling Services, Executive Director of Growth and Prosperity, the Director of Legal and Governance and the Cabinet Member for Housing, to agree and approve the detail of the additional property investment in line with the details set out in this paper.

Reasons for the decision

In December 2024, the Homelessness Team, on behalf of the Council, submitted an EOI for LAHF R3 and have been successful in securing £500k of partial capital funding to deliver 3 temporary accommodation homes for homeless households, and 1 home for a resettlement family.

Approval of the match funding element outlined in this proposal will ensure the Council can meet the requirement to be able to deliver the additional units of temporary accommodation and a resettlement property. These additional properties will help to reduce the Council’s usage of emergency accommodation which is a more expensive option.

These additional properties will help to reduce local pressures and use of expensive unsuitable accommodation, by providing better quality temporary accommodation to those owed homelessness duties. It will also help us to reduce the Council’s spend on emergency accommodation costs.

Alternative options considered

Section 106

Once the Council was successful in securing grant funding from the MHCLG, Officers undertook work to explore other match funding options, including the use of Section 106 monies.

In summary, Section 106 contributions which have been paid to the Council need to be put towards “affordable housing which is allocated to households from the housing register”, which is not encompassed within the requirements of the LAHF.

After various discussions, and advice from Legal Services, it was deemed that it is not possible to apply Section 106 funds held for affordable housing purposes, unless there is some reference to provision of affordable housing. Therefore, this option was not pursued any further, as it was not viable.

Do Nothing

If we do nothing, then our spend on emergency accommodation will continue to increase and could exceed that of previous years. We would also have to give the funding back to MHCLG.