Decision details

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Housing and Communities, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of these minutes as Item 8.

The report provided an update on the delivery of the Housing Needs Assessment for Worthing and which provides an interim data set about our current housing needs.

The Housing Needs Assessment was commissioned in March 2023. Officers engaged Cordis Bright to produce two data sets: a quantitative set of data, which would be released in August 2023; and a qualitative data set, which would be released in November 2023. In addition, the 2022/23 full year homelessness data would be available, which was expected to be published by DLUCH in October 2023.

The assessment was central to the development of ‘Our Plan's’ housing mission - Everyone has a safe, secure and sustainable home. It would provide important evidence for a number of new strategies including, the new Housing Strategy, the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Prevention Strategy, and the Strategic Asset Management Plan which will guide decisions about the future use of existing residential assets managed by Adur Homes.

It would also inform Adur and Worthing planning and development strategies for new social and affordable housing supply and more generally it would inform the Housing Needs Team future homelessness prevention activity. This data set as also critical to meet reporting requirements of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

Members were told of the increasingly challenging housing market in Worthing and the challenges faced by private renters who lost their housing due to no fault evictions.

A question was asked about the location of new sites for temporary and emergency accommodations The Cabinet Member for Housing andCitizen Service explained that the Council was under pressure from the duty of care and the duty to relieve homelessness from individuals presented to the Councils (which was increasing at an alarming rate). The most immediate site availability lay in town centre based accommodations that could be converted. The priority for the Cabinet Member was with residents who had been placed outside of the area in hotels with no cooking facilities.

Decision

The Worthing Sub Committee of the Joint Strategic Committee notes

1)     the current status of the Adur and Worthing Housing Needs Assessment with quantitative data due in August 2023, and qualitative data to follow in November 2023;

2)     the interim data on housing need and demand homelessness as set out in Section 5 of the report;

3)     that further reports will be brought to Committee later in the year following receipt of a final report from the consultants due in November 2023.

Call-in

The call-in deadline for the decisions will be 5pm on 23 June 2023.