Stratford-on-Avon District Council's Cabinet on Monday 8 July, agreed to establish a Housing Investment Panel (HIP) as a committee of The Cabinet.
The District Council has been working on a solution on how best to deliver additional affordable homes or more suitable homes and additional accommodation for households who are homeless.
The District Council already has a good record for the delivery of affordable homes. In the two years to end of March 2019, 740 affordable homes were delivered which was a record performance.
Following this decision the District Council will be able to facilitate a greater number of affordable homes by offering support to local communities and our partner Housing Associations to bring additional schemes forward. The Housing Investment Panel (HIP) has a remit to find innovative solutions to providing affordable homes which would otherwise not be built through using traditional developer only contributions.
The HIP will build on established ways of working and will also use offsite developer contributions which can be secured from development sites for the creation of affordable homes elsewhere in the district.
The HIP will assess applications for funding assistance and will have the power to make decisions on the allocation of resources that will deliver additional affordable homes.
The funding for the Panel will be available from the following sources:
- Capital funds collected for off-site development of affordable housing (Section 106 monies).
- The Community Led Housing Scheme funding, a Government grant secured by the Council and which can assist with revenue and capital funding.
- The remaining sum of the £1.4m already allocated for the purchase of temporary accommodation, which currently totals £340,734.
- There is the potential for a return on the investments made by the HIP or for a rental income to be generated where the created homes are retained for rental after construction. This may provide a further opportunity to re-invest some of that income into further schemes
Cllr Daren Pemberton, Place Portfolio says: "The District Council has been working on proposals to deliver more affordable housing across the district. We've explored some options; however, recent changes in local government finance regulations have meant that some models are no longer financially viable. We are committed to increasing the supply of affordable homes and the establishment of the HIP demonstrates our commitment. We will be directing resources to the creation of new homes by assisting Parish and Town Councils across the district in create them within their communities.
"In addition these small-scale community-led schemes, that meet local community needs, will provide opportunities for small scale building companies to deliver homes which at present are not provided by the national builders. It is our expectation that this will increase the speed of delivery by focusing on local affordable home schemes that more accurately reflect local housing need as well as looking at temporary accommodation options for the homeless across the district rather than relying upon B&Bs."
