Agenda item

The Panel will receive an update on Housing Growth which was originally presented to the Scrutiny Panel in July 2023.

 

 

Contact:  Liz Jefferson, Strategic Partnership Lead, Housing Growth Tel: 01484 221000

Cllr Graham Turner, Portfolio holder for Growth and Regeneration, introduced the item, advising that, there would be a presentation to the Panel, which would provide a progress update on the housing growth programme.  He explained that the  information aimed to show the positive aspects, and that officers should be thanked for delivering many positive projects, in very challenging times.

 

Liz Jefferson, Strategic Partnership Lead, referring to the presentation advised the Panel that the update would cover projects that span the following programmes:

•          Strategic Allocations

•          Accelerated Construction delivery

•          Specialist and Supported Housing

•          Affordable Housing

•          Registered Providers programme

•          Brokerage service

•          Pipeline sites

 

The Panel was informed that in terms of important context, nothing that is delivered in housing growth is done in isolation, and is undertaken collaboratively working with many external and internal partners.  For example, funding bodies, housing associations and consultants who support this work, as well as a wide range of teams across the Council.  This partnership approach is at the heart of everything that is undertaken and is dependent on the resources of both internal and external teams to help deliver housing.

 

The Panel was provided with an outline of the following projects:

 

Dewsbury Riverside

The Panel was informed that the strategic site at Dewsbury Riverside, is the largest housing allocation in Kirklees and is a key site in the West Yorkshire Strategic place, partnership priorities and there are multiple landowners on this site.  Key milestones achieved in the last year include:

 

-        the new allotments have been finished and work is being undertaken with capital delivery, external partners AHR and Casey, and that site opened in May 2023

 

-        Communities colleagues presented work on Dewsbury Riverside as an exemplar at Homes England national community engagement training in July

 

-        In August 2023, planning permission was granted to create a main access road and deliver the first 350 homes

 

-        Joint working with Homes England, has allowed the undertaking of due diligence, infrastructure costing viability work, master planning, a build to rent market assessment and master developer audit reports

 

-        In November 2023, Cabinet gave approval to enter into legal agreements with Homes England and Network Rail to undertake an appropriate procurement route for master developer

 

-        Strategic highways work is ongoing to understand the cumulative impact on the highways network and legal advice has been commissioned to inform collaboration and equalisation principles and the appointment of a master developer

 

 

Bradley Park

The Panel was informed that the next strategic site is at Bradley Park. This is also a local plan housing allocation, mostly in Council ownership, and the overall allocation is 68 hectares. £800,000 of capital funding has been secured, which was approved by Cabinet to help progress the site. 

 

Currently being undertaken is detailed highways work on the feasibility of delivering key junctions and discussions has commenced on strategic property acquisitions to help support that highways work. Procurement documents have been drafted and legal advice has been secured.

 

 

Ashbrow / Ash View Extra Care

 

The Panel was informed that in terms of Ash View, there will be a 50 bed Council Extra Care Scheme within a wider development of 111 mixed tenure units.  Of those 111, 98 will be for market sale and 13 will be affordable homes.  External works have been completed on the extra care scheme and there was a topping out ceremony in January 2024.  Looking forward, it is expected that the Extra Care Scheme will be completed in September 2024.  The fit out and staff training is to be delivered from October to January and for tenants to move in, in February 2025.

 

Soothill

 

The site at Soothill is another local plan housing allocation where there are a number of pre-development constraints caused by mining history on the site.  A grant of £4.5m was secured from Homes England’s Accelerated Construction Programme, which includes an obligation to deliver at pace and incorporate modern methods of construction.  The contractors Keepmoat Homes will deliver 319 homes in total, 95 of which will be affordable homes.

 

In the last year, the achievements have been 86 plots under construction, 46 plots occupied, 65 affordable plots secured via section 106 agreement and an extra 30 plots have been transferred to housing associations in communities.

 

Kenmore Drive – Cleckheaton

 

An 80-bed Affordable Extra Care and Public Open Space, in partnership with Housing 21, is being delivered and this scheme is being supported by Homes England’s affordable homes programme.  In the last year there was a difficult start on site when the contractor became insolvent, however Housing 21 have successfully lined up a replacement, Robertson Construction.

 

A multidisciplinary team of council officers has worked with Housing Growth to deliver the project, including Public Rights of Way, Planning, Highways and Legal colleagues.  A successful resident engagement event took place in December 2023 and a ground breaking ceremony was held in February 2024.  The development is due to complete in March 2026.

 

 

Affordable Housing and Brokerage

 

In terms of what has been delivered with regard to affordable housing and brokerage, the Housing Growth Team is the first point of contact to advise planning colleagues and developers about the different affordable housing needs across Kirklees.  Delivery is secured by s106 agreements as part of the planning process and work is also undertaken with registered providers of affordable homes such as housing associations who are assisted with advice and support.  Work is also undertaken in partnership on projects such as the registered providers clusters programme, working with housing associations 13.

 

In June 2023, Cabinet approved a fee to cover legal and administrative costs associated with processing the sale of first homes, starter homes and discount market sale homes.

 

The Brokerage Programme aims to increase housing delivery on privately owned sites.  The team have created a brokerage brochure of stalled development sites across the district and the team have also supported owners of stalled sites to apply for West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) Brownfield Housing Fund. This includes Parkwood Mills and Plane Street where 39 affordable housing homes have been delivered by Unity Housing Association, have just started on site.

 

Fenay Lane – Almondbury

 

This is another Council housing allocation, and have used WYCA housing revenue funding to undertake due diligence on the site to inform the preferred disposal route.  In November 2023, Cabinet gave approval to dispose of the site to a Homes England registered strategic partner via a competitive land sale.  Since then, soft market testing has been undertaken and land sale process has begun to secure a development partner. Further WYCA funding has been secured to support the site disposal.

 

The Panel was provided with information which outlined the overall position on delivery and advised that there are 767 homes either on site or in various stages of the planning process, of which 445 are affordable homes.  In addition, a further 1234 are actively being progressed, this is alongside 173 home secured through s106 agreements in 2023. There are 87 homes that the Council is supporting registered providers to deliver.

 

The Panel was shown a slide which highlighted the positive news coverage that the various developments had garnered in the last year.

 

In response to the information presented, the Panel made comments and asked questions including some of the following:

 

-          On the Bradley Park development, which has been talked about for many years, why has this development not made the same progress that has been made as the Dewsbury Riverside development?  What is the major delay on that? Is it potentially a capacity issue in the team?

 

-          The information presented mentioned detailed work being undertaken with highways, does this include Cooper Bridge because it would be good to get a progress update on where things are at, and if there are barriers what the Council is able to do to address any barriers.

 

-          On the Ashbrow Scheme, which is positive, is it possible to give a timeline on when this work started to get an indication of the lapse of time.

 

-          With regard to the affordable housing delivery particularly in respect of the use of language on affordable housing need across Kirklees, how is affordable housing need determined and how does it differ across Kirklees.  It would also be interesting to know what the different types of affordable housing needs are across Kirklees and how the different areas across Kirklees are defined.  This will enable local ward councillors to understand what the affordable housing need is across their ward.

 

-          It is positive that work is being undertaken on the stalled sites, how many stalls sites are currently being dealt with?

 

-          With regard to the Ashbrow site, are there any measures being put in place to combat the increase in anti-social behaviour?

 

-          It is positive that there are a lot of affordable housing in the pipeline, but how many affordable housing is needed within this year for the strategic housing assessment, how many will be achieved, how many is needed for next year and how many are in the pipeline for next year and going forward?

 

Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy

Sarah Holmes, Strategic Manager, (Homelessness) provided the Panel with a brief update on the timeline for the refresh of the Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy.  The Panel was directed to the slide which outlined the flightpath that will be followed in refreshing the strategy.

 

Strategy to be refreshed by July 2024. Current flightpath:-

-        Growth & Regen SLT 24^th April – draft revised strategy

-        Cabinet Portfolio Holder 24^th May – draft revised strategy

-        Executive Leadership Team – end of May

-        Executive Board – mid-June

-        Pre-decision Scrutiny – early July (provisional date)

-        Cabinet – mid July (provisional date)

 

The Panel was informed that it is a statutory duty for every local authority to have one of these strategies and the current strategy runs from 2018-2023 and will be expiring.  Therefore,  Cabinet will need to sign off the refreshed strategy in the summer 2024.  The expectation is to bring the refreshed strategy to the Scrutiny Panel in early July, subject to confirming the dates.  The aim is to engage with members during the refresh stage and an invite has been issued to all the political groups for individual sessions at group meetings.

 

The Panel raised concerns with the timeline for the strategy, as the aim to bring the revised strategy to a scrutiny panel meeting in early July and to Cabinet mid-July does not give sufficient time for any suggested changes made by the Panel to be incorporated. It is likely that the Cabinet papers will need to be published at the same time as it comes to scrutiny.  Officers were asked to revisit the timeline to give sufficient time for pre-decision scrutiny and give enough time for any suggested amendments to be made before it goes to Cabinet.

 

 

RESOLVED:

 

a)    That Liz Jefferson and Cllr Graham Turner be thanked for providing an update on Housing Growth and

 

b)    That Sarah Homles be thanked for providing an update on the timeline for the Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy

 

c)     That the timeline for the Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy being presented to Scrutiny be revisited to give enough time for any suggested amendments to be made before it goes to Cabinet