Issue - meetings

To consider a report by the Director for Place, copy attached as item 9

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Place, 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 9.

The report sought approval for the re-development of the Council owned property at 24 Marine Place Worthing to provide temporary accommodation and for a budget to complete the development of the site. This followed the publication of the Adur and Worthing Housing Strategy for 2020-2023, ‘Delivering Pathways to Affordable Homes’ document and subsequent Delivery Plans where plans for a housing development programme were set out.

The increasing demand for emergency and temporary accommodation (EA/TA) in Worthing was outlined, along with the Council’s commitment to owning its own stock of EA/TA, and reviews the options available to the Council for the future of the building with development of the site as temporary accommodation the preferred option both economically and in terms of meeting an established local need.

Decision

The Worthing Sub Committee of the Joint Strategic Committee

1)     Approved the preferred option for the future of the building at 24 Marine Place set out within this paper to enable the council to fulfil its statutory housing duties under S188 and S193 of the Housing Act 1996.

2)     Approved a budget of £1,100,000 from the unallocated temporary and emergency accommodation budget to deliver the project, and to note that the actual sum required from this budget will be lower should we be successful in an application for grant funding from Homes England’s Single Homelessness Accommodation Programme (SHAP) for which Worthing Borough Council has been identified as a target authority.

3)     Delegated authority to the Director for Housing and Communities to invite tenders for the construction work, and to enter into all necessary contracts to enable the project to progress through the construction phase to completion.

Call-in

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