SOUTH EAST DRAFT REGIONAL HOUSING STRATEGY

1. The Cabinet has commented in detail on behalf of the County Council on the draft Regional Housing Strategy which has been prepared by the newly established South East Regional Housing Board. The Strategy sets out the Board's approach to housing investment and provides a framework for spending decisions. The Strategy has been produced in the context of the change to a single regional housing funding pot and provides the basis for the allocation of resources from April 2004. It covers the period 2004/05 - 2005/06. The task of responding to the draft Strategy was rendered the more difficult by the very short period for consultation (just three weeks) and the late publication of a revised version incorporating a number of significant changes.

2. In summary, the Cabinet supports the general thrust of the Strategy which provides a more balanced approach than previous strategies, gives greater emphasis to rural problems, to solutions such as shared equity and key worker housing, and recognises that homelessness is not the only major housing issue to tackle. Nevertheless, it was particularly disappointed that two of the strong points of the original draft were diluted. The original version contained a list of key strategic growth points as geographic priorities for new housing provision, four of which were in Hampshire, namely West of Waterlooville, Basingstoke, Andover and MoD land at Rushmoor. However the revised version merely contains a sentence stating support for "other key strategic land releases" without specifying them. The Cabinet believes that these should be defined in the Strategy as it will give a clear signal to all interested parties of their importance in helping to meet regional housing needs. In addition, the revised Strategy no longer includes weightings to influence the distribution of funding for new housing for key workers, and for other overall priorities. The Cabinet believes that the inclusion of weightings would serve to emphasise the importance of key worker housing in comparison with other regional housing priorities in terms of funding streams. The Cabinet was also concerned that the Strategy failed to recognise sufficiently the affordability issue with regard to housing in the County.

3. The full text of the County Council's response is available from the Director of Environment on request.

4. The Regional Housing Board will commence work on the full Strategy in the Autumn in the light of the comments received.

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