Agenda item - Bid to the Greater London Authority for a funding programme under the 'Building Council Homes for Londoners' Programme.

Agenda item

Bid to the Greater London Authority for a funding programme under the 'Building Council Homes for Londoners' Programme.

Decision:

Cabinet:

Agreed to accept the supplementary agenda and the documents therein which included the revised Cabinet report and;

1. Approved the submission of the following bids to the GLA “Building Council Homes for Londoners” programme of : -

· Up to £122.6 million Affordable Housing Grant in line with the draft bid set out at Appendix 1.

· Up to £65.1 million HRA headroom in line with the draft bid set out at Appendix 2 of the report.

2. Noted that if successful in the bid(s):

· The Council will need to sign funding agreements with the GLA for which further Cabinet approval will be sought. A report seeking these approvals is likely to be submitted Spring/Summer 2019.

· The Council will develop a housing delivery programme relating to the bid programme

· In addition the Council will continue to explore other external funding opportunities to complement the above programmes.

3. Delegated authority to Section 151 Officer, after consultation with the Director of Neighbourhoods to enter into the Right to Buy ring-fence agreement with the GLA.

Minutes:

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Damian White presented the report to Cabinet and Cabinet also agreed to accept the supplementary agenda outlining changes to the bid to accommodate a request from the GLA.

In May 2018, the Mayor of London published the ‘Building Council Homes for Londoners’ grant funding prospectus to encourage London Councils to develop new, affordable homes to respond to the London Housing shortage. All homes funded by this grant must achieve a start on site by March 2022.

In addition to this, in July 2018, the GLA published an addendum to this prospectus which granted London Councils with the opportunity to increase their Housing Revenue Account (HRA) headroom for the purposes of developing new homes. A total of £500m has been made available for London Councils.

Both funding regimes present an opportunity for the Council to fund its housing aspiration of 11,700 new homes by 2025, as presented in the Draft Local Plan 2017 and set by the London Plan.

A bid for up to £122.6m of Affordable Housing Grant has been prepared, together with a strategy to use Right to Buy receipts to fund the delivery of affordable housing around the Borough. In addition to this, the Council has also prepared a bid to increase the HRA headroom by up to £155m in order to accelerate its housing development aspirations and increase housing supply to better respond to housing demand. This would contribute to responding to the General Fund pressures associated with increased homelessness demand. Generally, nationally the HRA borrowing cap will be lifted.

This will enable Havering to continue with ambitious housing delivery providing affordable homes for local people.

The model in Havering is to work with Joint Ventures (JV) to maximise capacity and utilise the skills of JV partners

The bid is now subject to the detail and has a programmed approach providing details of indicative sites. The outcome of the bidding process is expected in the autumn of 2018.