Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

The report will follow.

The DMC will consider the report on the Community Investment Programme (CIP) to be submitted to the Housing Scrutiny Committee on Monday 10^th December. This report will be available on Friday 30^th November and will be circulated to the DMC then.

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

Jeremy Shapiro, the Head of Community Investment and Regeneration introduced the report and noted the Chair had already submitted additional queries encompassing matters such as the relationship with the housing market, progress of sales, securing receipts and penalty clauses in contracts with contractors. The Chair expressed her disappointment that responses to those questions were not ready in time for the meeting. The Head of Community Investment and Regeneration accepted that it was reasonable to expect the Council to have much of the information sought readily to hand but explained that some analysis and collation of information was needed to respond to the queries and offered his apologies that it was not immediately available.

Responding to questions, the Head of Community Investment and Regeneration informed the DMC that the redeveloped Charlie Ratchford Centre would include a new community centre and 38 extra care homes paid for by the sale of an adjoining site.

He also outlined that the Council was procuring a development partner for redeveloping Cockpit Yard in Holborn as part of its accommodation programme. This would include new housing, updating Holborn library, re-providing depot space and having a creative incubator site for arts and crafts. The housing would be mixed tenure with roughly 35% affordable housing, being a mix of social housing and Camden Living homes. The Chair commented that the term ‘affordable’ needed to be avoided because of the difference in the legal and colloquial use of the word.

Answering further questions, the Head of Community Investment and Regeneration outlined that consultation on the Cockpit Yard site had taken place through the local area action group and the library user group. There was some concern from residents on the neighbouring street about the impact of construction.

The DMC was informed that the £30.8 million grant from the Mayor of London would predominantly go into the Community Investment Programme (CIP) given that the construction of housing under CIP provided the assurance to the Mayor’s office that the grant would lead to homes being built. By using the grant money, £22 million of Right to Buy receipts earmarked for use in CIP could be instead be used for other projects. Concerns about Right to Buy were raised by the DMC.

A DMC member commented that as CIP works were separate from Better Homes works it was difficult to understand from just a CIP report the full breadth of improvement and redevelopment works under consideration. Combining them under one umbrella would help give a better overview to residents on what works might be happening in their areas.

The Head of Community Investment and Regeneration outlined that everything listed in the table in the report was approved by Cabinet and had planning permission. Godwin and Crowndale proposals had not been listed because consultation with residents had not occurred yet. However providing 10 new Council homes on the site was being looked at. There were other potential sites being explored but the Council was wary of listing them as CIP schemes when they had not been fully scoped or consulted on.

DMC members commented that as many local residents were generally aware of mooted schemes on their sites and that transparency was important, a table should be included in update reports on sites under consideration. Uncertainty around sites was delaying other investment, for example, through DMC bids.

In discussion, DMC members commented as follows:

-       Consultation on proposed public space developments tended to be poor;

-       Negative impacts such as additional density, loss of green space and loss of trees needed to be listed in reports as well as positives to give a balanced picture;

-       Greater transparency was needed around the large Camden Living homes being marketed to sharers; and

-       Even allowing for a 1 year set up period, it was concerning the Council was halfway into the 15 year programme but had only completed 20-25% of projects needed to meet the targets set. There may be variations across different types of tenure, but it was not clear how the Council would manage to significantly improve its completion rate.

In response to the final comment, the Head of Community Investment and Regeneration acknowledged the challenge in meeting the CIP targets for new and additional housing. However, projects amounting to 70% of the housing target had already been approved and so the overall target was considered achievable.

There followed some queries around the relationship between HS2 replacement homes and CIP homes on the Regent’s Park estate. The Head of Community Investment and Regeneration outlined that 70 homes at Netley were listed in private sales. Of the 95 HS2 replacement homes, he believed that 66 were replacement social housing and 29 either shared ownership or shared leasehold. Only 6 of the 29 affected leaseholders had taken up the opportunity to move into a replacement home and the Council was considering what to do with the remaining units. He could confirm the figures and other details in due course.

ACTION BY:            Jeremy Shapiro, Head of Community Investment and Regeneration

DMC members raised concerns about the density of housing on the Regent’s Park estate as more housing was currently being built, albeit social housing was welcome.

The Head of Community Investment and Regeneration agreed in response to a question to provide detail on why HS2 had yet to take possession of the blocks on the Regent’s Park estate earmarked for demolition.

ACTION BY:            Jeremy Shapiro, Head of Community Investment and Regeneration

He further agreed to provide detail on the costs of employing five community liaison officers. DMC members asked that the details also set out why these were considered necessary, but only in Gospel Oak as they did not appear to be being used elsewhere.

ACTION BY:            Jeremy Shapiro, Head of Community Investment and Regeneration

The Chair reiterated the disappointment that the information sought prior to the meeting had not been provided in time and asked that a special DMC meeting be explored to look at this as well as the additional information sought during the meeting.

            ACTION BY:             Komal Doan, Senior Tenant Participation Officer