Agenda item

Report of the Director of Development

Camden’s Community Investment Programme (CIP) is one of the largest and most successful municipal housebuilding programmes in the UK. CIP has built over 1,000 homes in the last 10 years and is continuing to deliver more affordable housing in the borough as quickly as possible to better support the needs of local communities.

The 2022 CIP Annual report contains an update on progress on CIP schemes and an overview of the market.

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Development, which was presented by Neil Vokes, Director of Development, who gave the following key responses to questions:

·       The Council engaged extensively with the Greater London Authority (GLA) and had in recent years secured significant grant funding to build affordable homes. In 2018 the Council secured £30.8M in grant funding to deliver 308 social rent homes. Of the 308 social rented homes, 101 had been delivered, 56 were under construction and 151 would be started within the 2022/23 financial year. All CIP schemes had a business plan and went through a rigorous scrutiny process to ensure they all delivered best value at each stage of the process. Project costs were benchmarked against other data from other local authorities using an industry standard approach. Camden was a founding member of the Beacon Partnership cost benchmarking club, where local authorities shared tender returns on a confidential basis, enabling club members to benchmark build costs across local authorities. Officers were not able to access data from private developers but would look into whether this could be obtained and used to compare against local authority data.  

·       All CIP schemes sought to follow the guiding principles which set out how the scheme would be delivered and how the decisions would be made. In the Agar Grove scheme, tenants wanted change as they were living in homes that were not fit for purpose as they were often suffering from damp, mould and living in overcrowded homes. The new homes built met the Passive House standard and tenants and residents there were already seeing energy bills being reduced by 70%. Tenants living on the West Kentish Town Estate had voted in favour of redevelopment because of poor living conditions.

·       Before September 2022, CIP’s target was to deliver 3,050 new homes, of which 1,100 would be social rented homes. Since CIP’s inception, the programme had made significant progress in meeting this target, delivering 1,290 new homes, of which 618 are social rented homes. In September 2022, the Cabinet agreed to extend the programme’s scale and ambition and a new target of 4,850 homes, including over 1,800 social rented homes, was set. To deliver on this target, the programme had sought approval of a number of large-scale projects. Phase 2a of Agar Grove and West Kentish Town were approved by Cabinet in July 2022, with Bacton Phase II and Camley Street being approved by Cabinet in September 2022. A Cabinet decision on the first phase of Small Sites was expected in 2023, which will be followed by a decision on Wendling and St Stephen’s Close in late 2023 or early 2024. The new targets represented a significant increase in the number of homes which would be delivered. As with previous CIP schemes, new ones would include a mixture of housing tenures, including private sale units to cross-subsidise the delivery of affordable housing, social rented units and a range of intermediate rent homes. In addition to homes, the expanded CIP programme would also deliver new community facilities, family hostel accommodation and new temporary accommodation alongside affordable workspace.

·       Projects were also subject to a rigorous governance process with a dedicated CIP governance structure within the Council and opportunities for member engagement throughout design and delivery. All projects were approved by the Cabinet and an annual update was brought to members of scrutiny committees. In addition, Ward Councillors were extensively engaged to ensure CIP delivered on local resident needs.

·       The programme delivered widespread benefits to Camden residents. As well as creating new high-quality homes and buildings, CIP schemes created additional income for the Council through residential and commercial rents that helped fund Council services. While some of the other benefits could be quantified (e.g. reduced heating and cooling costs or potential additional rental income from activities in a new community building), many of the benefits delivered by CIP schemes were difficult to monetise. For instance, a scheme that replaced an outdated community facility with a new modern one would lead to more community groups using the centre and new community connections being formed. Replacing poor quality homes with new homes that provided a bigger living space and more bedrooms provided unqualifiable gain for people’s and families health and well-being.

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted.