This meeting will include reports on Oldham Council’s finances, housing land availability, infrastructure funding, and its brownfield land register. The meeting will also discuss the Council’s Temporary Accommodation Fair Share Policy and its Street Lighting Attachment Policy.

Council Tax, Business Rates and the Medium Term Financial Strategy

The Council will be asked to approve the Council Tax¹ base for 2025/26 at 59,501 Band D equivalent properties, an increase of 121 when compared to the 2024/25 base. The report notes:

The Collection Fund (combined) has moved into a projected deficit position in 2024/25 resulting in additional pressure on the 2025/26 budget. This is largely the result of slower than anticipated growth in the council tax base during 2024/25. The meeting report pack also contains an update on the revenue budget position. This notes a forecast overspend position based on the Month 8 profiled budget of £13.594m which, if not addressed, would result in a year-end overspend of £20.390m. The three areas of greatest concern in terms of overspend are Adult Social Care, Children's Services, and Strategic Housing. In order to address this overspend, the report states the Council's Senior Leadership will continue to work to deliver savings by: Centralising, restructuring and reducing corporate and support services; Reviewing and reducing management and administration; Reviewing service operations and processes; Income maximisation; and Reviewing placements, contracts and commissioned services. The report says these changes will drive both in year savings and contribute to reducing the budget gap in future years. The meeting report pack contains an update to the Medium Term Financial Plan, noting an indicative net budget gap of £17.2m for 2025/26 and a cumulative budget gap of £57.9m over the period 2025/26 to 2028/29. The report notes the uncertainty caused by central government's move to multi-year budget settlements.

The meeting report pack estimates Business Rates income for 2025/26 at £56.177m, the best estimate available currently and is the assumption underpinning the 2025/26 budget estimates. The report requests that the Cabinet delegate the final decision on Business Rates to Councillor Abdul Jabbar MBE² in consultation with the Director of Finance, because a more up to date estimate will be available in late January 2025.

Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment

The meeting report pack contains Oldham's Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) 2024, which identifies land with the potential to deliver 13,475 new homes. It breaks down the potential supply into four time periods, as follows:

• 3,495 homes between 2024 and 2029
• 5,006 homes between 2029 and 2034
• 4,218 homes between 2034 and 2039
• 756 homes after 2039 The SHLAA notes that sites under construction, sites with extant planning permission, and to a slightly lesser extent, potential/pending sites and lapsed and stalled sites make up the bulk of the potential supply in the first five years. The report states that: >PfE [Places for Everyone] is less than five years old (being adopted on 21 March 2024) and identified a five-year supply of specific deliverable sites at the time that its examination concluded. As such, as per paragraph 76 of the current NPPF [National Planning Policy Framework], local planning authorities are not required to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing for decision making purposes if: (a) their adopted plan is less than five years old; and (b) that adopted plan identified at least a five year supply of specific, deliverable sites at the time that its examination concluded. However the SHLAA provides a breakdown of anticipated delivery year by year. The report states that the SHLAA: >...identifies 2,988 homes as being deliverable in the short to long term within Oldham Town Centre. Of these, 300 homes are identified within the short term (2024-2029); 830 homes are identified within the medium term (2029- 2034); 1,431 homes are identified within the long term (2034-2039); and 427 homes are identified within the post plan period (post 2039).

Infrastructure Funding Statement

Oldham Council's Infrastructure Funding Statement 2023-2024 summarises the contributions the Council received via Section 106 agreements³, showing that the Council received £1,629,907 during the 2023/24 financial year. It states that:

In total there are £2,964,943 s106 receipts which have been received but have not been allocated – of this £1,335,035 (including interest accrued) was received before the reporting year (prior to 2023/24). The report notes that ten new S106 agreements were signed during the year, with a total value of £716,286.80. The report also contains details of how £349,735.80 of Section 106 funding was spent. It also notes that a further £874,684 has been allocated to projects but remains unspent.

Brownfield Land Register

Oldham Council's Brownfield Register 2024 contains 185 sites which the Council has assessed as suitable for housing development. 35 of these sites are now developed, but are retained on the register. No sites are included on Part 2 of the Register, sites that the local authority has decided to grant Permission in Principle. The report states that this is because:

...due to the limited scope of PiP [Permission in Principle], issues such as design quality cannot be as effectively managed as they would be through a conventional planning application. PiP for housing on a mixed-use site may make it difficult to negotiate an appropriate balance of uses once a final scheme is being decided. It is better if such issues are considered as early in the design process as possible but the need to wait for technical details consent stage during a PiP application makes the process less effective.

Temporary Accommodation Fair Share Policy

The Council is being asked to adopt the Temporary Accommodation Fair Share Policy, a new policy that would allow it to require residents placed in temporary accommodation to contribute towards the cost of their accommodation. The report states that:

...this policy will only apply to tenants placed in self-contained accommodation (i.e. with their own cooking and bathroom facilities, rather than hotels for example), as this is what MHCLG [Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government] deems to be compliant... Charges in such instances are likely to be subject to legal challenge. The report estimates that the policy would generate a surplus, assuming that 60% of the maximum LHA rate was recovered from the 27 working families in self-contained temporary accommodation who would be required to pay under the policy.

Street Lighting Attachment Policy

The Council will be asked to approve a new policy that outlines the process required to attach signs and equipment to street lights. The report states that:

Under Section 178 of The Highways Act 1980 (the ‘Act’), there is a legal requirement for any person, group, or organisation (the ‘Applicant’) that wishes to fix overhead apparatus over, along or across a road (including associated footways and verges) to first obtain an Attachment Licence from the Highway Authority (the ‘Council’). It goes on to say that the service provider has been following a robust process but: ...the service has identified that there is no formal Council policy in place covering the requirements of the Act and PFI contract. This report is requesting approval to rectify this omission and implementation of a policy which clearly outlines, for all Applicants, their legal obligations and Council requirements. The policy includes guidance on the types and sizes of attachments allowed on different types of columns, including those strengthened to support seasonal decorations and other apparatus, and defines the processes, fees, and insurances required to attach anything to a streetlight in the borough.