Agenda and draft minutes

The Chair, Cllr Stephen Simkins, gave notice of thanks to officers and to the police liaison officer for support to the scrutiny function during the year.  He thanked officers and partners who had provided detailed reports on key issues throughout the year and he thanked panel members for contributions made to debate at each meeting and he especially thanked the Vice-Chair Cllr Andrew Wynne for his valuable contributions at agenda planning meetings and in the Scrutiny Panel meetings.

Cllr Andrew Wynne, Vice-Chair echoed the comments of the Chair and on behalf of the Panel, welcomed the manner in which the Chair had conducted the meetings, in an impartial and fair manner.

Apologies were submitted on behalf of Cllr Richard Whitehouse and Cllr Ian Brookfield who had other council business to attend.

Cllr Tersaim Singh declared a non-pecuniary interest in item 5 on the agenda relating to ‘Improving the City Housing Offer’ as a member of the Wolverhampton Homes Board.

Resolved:

            That the minutes of the previous meeting (5 February 2015) be approved and signed as a correct copy.

There were no matters arising

[Improving the City Housing Offer to provide the report to Cabinet and presentation for scrutiny to consider]

Nick Edwards, Service Director City Assets and Chris Hale, Head of Housing were in attendance at the meeting to provide a presentation ‘Improving the City Housing Offer’ and to respond to questions arising from a report also relating to ‘Improving the City Housing Offer’ that had been previously circulated to the Panel and agreed for action by the Cabinet on 11 March 2015.

The Service Director advised that the purpose of the item was to summarise the challenges facing the Council in improving delivery of a ‘fit for purpose’ city housing offer across all tenures and building on the progress made to date, to set out a framework for progressing this across the city and to highlight the priorities for 2015 and onwards.

The Head of Housing gave a presentation which brought together the strands of the housing offer ranging from supporting people in need of housing to aspirational housing.  It highlighted the challenges faced and the plans to deliver housing opportunities across all tenures.

The Service Director advised that the Cabinet report contained the agenda for where the Council goes next to improve the city housing offer.

There followed a period of questioning, the subject and response were recorded as follows:

Government target:

The Head of Housing confirmed that the Council will need to work with developers as the land identified could be quite difficult to build on and there will need to be work with affordable homes providers to improve the viability. 

Inner Ring Road and city centre living:

The Service Director advised that regeneration programme is wider than the city centre and that one element is to increase number of city centre accommodations. He indicated that building in the city centre would help to attract people to live there, current regeneration projects are:

·         Offices

·         Youth zone

·         Mander Centre

·         Leisure based scheme

·         West side market area (potential residential development)

The city centre has got to be right before housing comes into the city centre. The Service Director advised that issues such as unsightly ‘for rent’ boards by the Blue Brick Hotel had to be addressed and that officers were investigating and will improve the situation.

Older people housing:

Housing older people in bungalows was raised as a particular point.  The Service Director advised that there have been elements of recent developments that provide supported housing and that the aging population is a challenge and one of the priorities in the work going forward.

Developers – planning officer advice:

The Service Director advised that the Council is trying to give a full package to developers not just a planning response and that developers want to look at infrastructure, demographics and employment rates to build a picture of the area and what is required. The joined up response is a work in progress and Taylor Wimpey will be giving feed back to the Council of their experience of working with the Council.

Shortfall in housing in the City:

The Head of Housing advised that this is due to a number  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.