Agenda item

A report of the Strategic Director of Housing, Planning & Regeneration, and Regulatory Services, providing the Group with information regarding the potential for establishing a Leicestershire Collaborative Housing Company or developing a Local Housing Company for Charnwood.

A report of the Strategic Director of Housing, Planning & Regeneration, and Regulatory Services, providing the Group with information regarding the potential for establishing a Leicestershire Collaborative Housing Company or developing a Local Housing Company for Charnwood, was submitted (item 8 on the agenda filed with these minutes). 

The Strategic Director of Housing, Planning & Regeneration, and Regulatory Services assisted with consideration of the item and provided the following responses to issues raised:

(i)            If established, the Borough Council would be the sole shareholder of the company and would set the company’s objectives.  The company would have its own directors and would operate at arm’s length from the Council using its own business plans and policies to deliver those objectives.  The Council would be able to scrutinise the actions of the company.  The Council could loan the company money and receive interest or other returns on that investment.

(ii)          There was a range of options for what the company’s objectives could be.  Properties could be built to be sold or for market rent and the proceeds from that could be used to subsidise the development of affordable housing, which could take a number of forms.  Properties that were developed by the company would be outside the Housing Revenue Account and would therefore not be subject to the right to buy.  Some councils that had established companies had used them to build properties outside their local area.

(iii)         Providing land was available the company could be used to deliver housing anywhere in the Borough in response to identified needs.  The Council did not own significant areas of land that could be developed and one option could be to work with the developers of the sustainable urban extensions identified in the Core Strategy.

(iv)         Consultants would be used to assist the Council with setting up the company.  It was estimated that the cost of that would be less than £10,000.

(v)          In the long term it was uncertain whether the use of a company would result in additional houses being provided but the use of one could speed up the delivery of housing.

(vi)         The establishment of companies by councils was a recent development and the majority of those that had been set up had yet to be used to develop housing.  However, the Council could learn from the experiences of Councils that had set up companies. 

The following comments were made by members of the Group:

(i)            The establishment of a company was an exciting initiative that could provide an opportunity for the Council to act more flexibly in responding to housing needs in the Borough.

RESOLVED

1.         that the report be noted;

2.         that it be noted that reference to the Group’s enthusiasm for the establishment of a Housing Development Company, in that the establishment of a company was an exciting initiative that could provide an opportunity for the Council to act more flexibly in responding to housing needs in the Borough, would be included in the report to the Cabinet on the matter.

Reasons

1.         To acknowledge the information received.

2.         To record the views of the Group and how they would be dealt with.