Transcript

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Cabinet on the Wednesday, the 11th of June, 2025. Please be advised this meeting will be recorded and posted on the Council's YouTube channel. Can all those speaking ensure you switch off your microphone before addressing the meeting and remember to switch it off when you have finished speaking? When voting, can members please raise their hand? Thank you very much. Right. Right. Or begin proceedings. Apologies for absence. Thank you for comments, Jack. And Councillor also Jackie Smith. Any other apologies? Thank you very much. Okay. Item two, no edge of business. Item three, any declarations of interest? Item four, is Cabinet happy to agree the minutes of the last meeting? Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item five, Housing and Asset Management Strategy 2025, 2020, 2030. And we'll hand over to the Cabinet Member for Housing, Management, Neighbourhoods and Homelessness, Councillor Pat Slattery. Thank you, Chair. And just to make a few introductory remarks, I'm really proud of this five-year Housing Asset Management Strategy. It is and will remain strongly evidence and data-based so that we get a really accurate picture of the condition of our precious housing stock of now 21,000 homes. There are challenges for our times, as well as challenges for the ages. For example, the money that we are going to be spending governed by this strategy. We'll look at the decency of homes to make sure they're decent, their energy efficiency, and that means, as well, their carbon reduction performance. It will help govern our ability to respond to the rightly ever-increasing building safety standards, and we'll deliver all of these objectives in an excellent project management approach. The £400 investment that we're making now and for the next four years into our stock will be guided by this evidence-based strategy, I'm glad to say. So, I do commend it to the Cabinet. Thank you very much, Councillor Slattery. And do members have any questions or comments? Thank you very much. As outlined in section 1.1 to 1.4 of the report. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We'll now move on to item 6. Is there any further apologies? No? Okay. We'll now move on to item 6. Greenwich builds phase 2. Sites for consideration. Acquisition for housing for social rent. And we'll hand over to the Cabinet Member for planning, estate renewal, and development. Thank you, Chair. And, yeah, thank you very much. And so, I would like to say that what we're proposing here is an opportunity for us, really. And I think it's an opportunity to celebrate what Greenwich Build has already achieved in Phase 1, which is having over 750 council homes in progress. And in Phase 2, we've got an ambitious target of over 1,000, which we are, at the moment, in line with what we're proposing here. We're also looking to kind of pivot and kind of do well in progressing those as well. So, this report asks Cabinet to agree that officers progress the due diligence and commercial negotiations in relation to the three acquisition opportunities and approve formal inclusion of these sites into the Greenwich Build's Phase 2 program, as I've just mentioned, subject to the outcome of sites criteria assessments. And it is important to note that following Phase 1 of builds, which made a significant progress, in Phase 2, we've had to pivot and take opportunity of the changes in the market as it is. So, where we have predominantly built, we are looking to acquire. And the three of the sites that we're looking to acquire at this stage is in Woolwich Royal Arsenal, about 90 homes, Kibbrook Village, approximately 66 homes, and in Greenwich Millennium Village, which is about 97. And given the current climate, we have been given the opportunity to increase our supply of council homes through acquisitions. And we have to be agile and take advantage of this opportunity, where developers are not able to sell to registered providers because of the current climate. We are stepping in to acquire homes at a discounted rate. This adds to our housing supply, now rather than later, and provides quality homes residents on the waiting list. And in total, in proposition, we are acquiring approximately over 250 new council homes across these three sites. So, I do welcome any questions, but any input from officers as well at this stage. Thank you. Thank you very much. Questions? Councillor Slessory. Chair, it's not a question. I just, as Cabinet Member of Housing, wanted to welcome the report. And the fact that these over 250 new homes, with usually a high spec, will be coming on the stream really quite quickly. And the 28,000 households on our register, of whom 5,000 have a priority, will be delighted as well. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Slessory. Any other questions or comments? Can I, it's a question for me to potential officers on additional GLA grant funding. Are we aware of how much additional GLA grant funding we're getting for these properties that we are buying? Sir, thank you. So, through you, Chair, we haven't got an exact number at the moment, but that depends on the next stage of negotiation then with the developers and the GLA as to what the grant rate will be. But we expect it to be a significant amount towards the acquisition cost. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. Any other comments or questions at all? And once the negotiation is finished, what will then be the process that we hand over to Housing Management? Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. Okay. All right. Are members happy to agree to decisions that's outlined in Section 1.1 to 1.4 of the report? Thank you very much. Sorry. You prompted me earlier and I didn't take any notice. I do have to leave now for a family commitment, so my apologies. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Slessory. We'll now move on to Item 7, the Woolwich Legislative Centre, Variation of the Development Agreement for the Residential Element of the Scheme. And I'll hand over to Councillor Majid Rahman to present the report. Thank you, Leader. So, yes, the purpose of this report is to inform the panel and seek agreement on the approval of the Variation of the Development Agreement for the Residential Element of the Woollwich Legislative Centre Scheme. And the change from current Affordable Housing Development Agreement, changing from the Council buying 50 homes. And so, in total, the idea is to provide, the original agreement was to provide just over 150 affordable homes, 50 of them the Council would purchase, and 100 of them would be on the market as shared ownership schemes. And given the current climate, we've had to make a variation on that. And I would like to add that the new Legislative Centre site is an opportunity to bring good quality social rented housing into our town centre. And the change proposed in this report is instead of purchasing these 15 new Council homes and providing 100 shared ownerships, we want to provide over, in line with the changes, we will be providing over 180 socially rented homes. which will be owned by a registered provider, which will be owned by a registered provider, who will manage and operate them, and the Council won't be purchasing any more. But this will be providing quality housing for our residents, and instead of providing shared ownership housing, we'll be providing a social rent, which I would suggest is a better deal, given the current demand for social housing. And the deal is in danger of not being built, as the previous agreement of 50 Council housing being purchased, and 100 shared ownerships would not be suitable, given the current climate. And I guess looking at the bigger picture of the current climate and pivoting, we'll be able to divert that fund, where we won't be purchasing 50 housing, into buying acquisitions elsewhere, in projects that are already ready, built, and ready to be lived in. So we can divert that into some of the more current projects, which will deliver in a short term, ensuring that we have that constant, consistent supply of homes for our residents, giving them quality homes within the borough, now rather than tomorrow, and rather than wait three or four years for development to be built out, you know, and hopefully they get built out as well. So the proposed variation reflects the agreement recently between the Council and Hill as its residential development partner. And if officers want to come in or have any questions, thank you. Thank you very much. Officers coming in on that? On this at all? Okay. So just questions from me. I guess there's two parts to this cabinet. I believe there's, they are items that are protected. So if you want to ask questions on any of that, then please inform me so we can go into closed session. But more generally on the report. So can I just have an explanation on this housing element arm? So we are, what is it that has been dropped from the residential element of the scheme? And how does that enable the development to be unlocked? Can you hear me okay? Yep. There we go. Is that better? Okay. So there is a revision being proposed to the overall scheme in order to address the viability challenges resulting from construction cost inflation, second staircase and so on. So there will be a revised scheme. In terms of what is being dropped, there isn't really anything being dropped per se. What the change is that we are discussing here is that the council will not be the purchaser of the social rented element of the affordable homes package. Instead, a registered provider will purchase those. But the big gain is that instead of only one third of it being social rented, all of the affordable would be social rented, and there would be no shared ownership. What that does, as Councillor Rahman alluded to, is it allows the HRA to allocate those funds that were previously ring-fenced to that scheme into the other programme, and an RP therefore to come forward and deliver 182 social rented homes. So there is a change in who is doing what, but the overall picture is that the scheme gets more social rented homes for the borough, and the borough will have nomination agreements for its residents into that. And can you just confirm, so then the shared ownership as a home ownership affordable product is moving to a social rented product? Correct. Okay. Councillor Taggart Ryan. So just for my clarity, from a perspective of someone on the housing register, there essentially would be no difference, because those places that are being managed by the register provider would still be accessed through the choice-based lettings system? Correct. So the nominations agreement within the section 106 and affordable housing agreement would give Greenwich the right to put forward the nominations according to its own housing policies, whether that be choice-based lettings or any other mechanism that it would want to implement, but we will retain the rights to put our residents in there first. Okay. Councillor Bauer. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to know whether a good percentage of the homes that are going to be purchased by the Housing Association would be family-sized homes, three-bedroom ones? Happy to answer that again. It is, yes. There will be a mix of homes of one-beds, two-beds, and three-beds, but given that we are moving towards a social rented mix, that would be accordingly providing for families as well. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Are there any other further questions? I don't see any. Are members happy to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.4 of the report? Thank you. Thank you very much. And that brings us to an end to the Cabinet meeting. Thank you, everyone, for your time today. Thank you very much, Mr.цы. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.