Housing Strategy Statement

Get the Full Housing Strategy Statement 2008 - 2011

The Summary

About Peterborough

Peterborough City Council is a Unitary Authority in the East of England. The city has been a major growth point within Cambridgeshire since it was designated as a New Town in May 1971. Peterborough is 78 miles from London. It is mid-way between the East Anglian coast and the Midlands and has excellent road and rail connections both North-South and East-West.

The City is entering a period of further dramatic growth with predictions that the population could increase from its current level of 156,050, of which 10.3% are from minority ethnic communities, to over 200,000 by 2016. The Council is already planning to meet the needs of this growing population and is determined to ensure that the City will develop in a balanced and sustainable way.

Peterborough has begun planning for a radical renewal of the City that will take place over the next 10 - 20 years and will see a complete modernisation of its city centre with the introduction of high quality city centre living opportunities. The City is taking the opportunity to co-ordinate a number of large-scale developments that have been packaged together to form the new City Centre Master-plan. A major citywide consultation is currently underway regarding these development opportunities that will see improvements in shopping, transport and housing.

Housing Headline News in Peterborough

A Master Plan to guide the development of the City Centre for the next 15 - 20 years has been produced. This radical renewal will see a complete modernisation of the City Centre with the introduction of high quality City Centre living opportunities
In January 2004 it was announced that as part of the Sustainable Communities Plan, the London-Stansted-Cambridge (LSC) growth area had been extended to include Peterborough
English Partnerships is actively supporting the delivery of affordable housing in the City. They have provided two pockets of land in their ownership to an RSL for the direct provision of affordable homes. They are working at a strategic level to negotiating the provision of substantial financial support to encourage the redevelopment of major brown field land holdings, including the South Bank, which form part of the Council's City Centre Master Plan
Independent consultants undertook a stock condition survey of Peterborough City Council's stock, in March and April 2003. The costs of remedying current non-decency and preventing further dwellings becoming non-decent was quoted as £19,015,769 - a cost the council could not meet if it retained management and ownership of its homes
The City Council's tenants have now voted to transfer their homes to Cross Keys Homes, a newly created RSL, under the Governments' Large Scale Voluntary Transfer programme. It is expected that these homes will formally transfer to the ownership and management of Cross Keys Homes in autumn 2004. Following on from this development, the council is confident that the stock will achieve the decent homes standard by 2010
An Interim Housing Needs Assessment has been completed to update the full Housing Needs Survey completed in 2000.
The council has commissioned Consultants to undertake cutting edge Geographical Information Systems (GIS) needs mapping that will enable sophisticated analysis of housing needs at a neighbourhood level and a much more sophisticated understanding of the City's local housing market
The Housing Strategy Team is working with the Strategic Planning Team to develop S.106 documentation to ensure a consistent approach to all new developments. The Council aims to ensure the delivery of 30% affordable housing on all S.106 Agreements where this is possible and will negotiate with developers to provide free serviced land for the delivery of these homes
The Council received a grant of £950,000 from the Department of Health to deliver a new Extra Care Sheltered Housing scheme in the City which will be delivered in partnership with a Axiom Housing Association
The Government Directive to restrict the use of B&B hotels for families with children to short-term emergencies (no longer than 6 weeks) by 31 March 2004 has been consistently achieved by Peterborough City Council since September 2003
Peterborough has operated a choice based lettings scheme since 1 March 2004
Peterborough's home maintenance skills project, the "House Doctor" was launched in June 2003. It is the only scheme of this type to be funded by the New Opportunities Fund
Peterborough held its first BME Housing Conference in March 2004, which focussed on the needs of black and minority ethnic council tenants and prospective tenants. It is intended that it will now become an annual event
Peterborough City Council has been successful in an innovative bid to the Home Office for an "Invest to Save" award of £2.2 million to fund projects from April 04 - March 07 for new arrivals into Peterborough. The purpose of the award is to reduce public sector spending and provide more efficient joined up services for users

Summary of Local Housing Need

Property prices increased by 29% between 2000-2003, excluding a large proportion of "first time" buyers from the property market.
The income level required to access the home ownership housing market increased by 56% for flats and 91% for houses between 2000-2003
The housing needs study calculated the overall affordable housing needs requirement on an annual basis. After allowing for average annual re-lets of the existing social housing stock including all newly built RSL dwellings; there will still be an annual affordable housing shortfall of 793 units per year
There have been significant changes in household formation in Peterborough over the last decade resulting in a much higher increase in the number of households compared to population growth and average household size
At the beginning of July 2004 there were 7011 applicants on the councils housing register. On average 60 new applications are received each week and around 22 offers of council housing are made each week

Recent Achievements

Since the production of the last housing strategy, Peterborough has seen fundamental developments in a number of significant service areas. The Council has:

Introduced a new Housing Options Service to deliver improved services to housing applicants and homeless households
Contributed to the delivery of the Regional Housing Strategy through the production of a sub-regional housing strategy
Produced a Homelessness Strategy
Set up a new Strategic Housing Partnership to contribute to the delivery of the council's housing strategy
Commissioned a consultant to undertake work to analyse local practice in the delivery of affordable housing. This work has been accepted by the Council and will radically improve processes that will deliver service improvements
Commenced delivery of a mixed funded unit for homeless people that will offer high quality accommodation and support
Produced a Supporting People Shadow Strategy
Produced a Private Sector Housing Strategy
Developed a partnership with the Home Improvement Trust to deliver Peterborough Houseproud, which offers a range of loan products to homeowners

Key Priorities for Action

The Housing Strategy sets out the following key priorities that were derived from consultation, partnership working and local, regional and national priorities. The Strategy focuses on these priorities and considers a range of options to achieve their delivery. The options chosen have become our key tasks that are set out in the Action Plan attached as an annex to the Strategy.

Each of the priorities identified feed into either departmental service plans or the objectives of the Peterborough Strategic Housing Partnership and will be formally monitored on a quarterly basis.

Ensure that the City's housing stock improves in quality and genuinely contributes to an improving sense of well-being in the City

Provide an innovative and proactive advice, assistance and rehousing service linked to accommodation management and support agencies

Improve the range of strategic housing services and their accessibility for the benefit of vulnerable people and the black and minority ethnic members of the community

Ensure that the Council has a clear understanding of the local housing market so that investment can be directed at meeting the City's highest priorities

Ensure that the City Council and its partners maximise the delivery of affordable housing that meets current and future housing needs and ensures that developers and other stakeholders know what is expected of them when they work in the City