Agenda item

Please note that as set out in Chapter 2, section 14.11 of the Constitution

The following motion has been submitted by Cllr W Fredericks:

Homelessness Crisis Motion

North Norfolk like other parts of the Country is in the grip of a devastating housing emergency which is damaging the lives and opportunities for hundreds of households.

Intro (total motion must not be more than 200 words but can include supporting statement)

This Council calls for:

1. The Leader of the Council, and the leaders of opposition groups, to write to the relevant Secretary of State to begin the process of readdressing the challenges to the Housing Crisis.

2. Local Housing Allowance to be urgently increased to realistic levels for North Norfolk. In line with private rental amounts

3. Central Govt. policy to support Councils to buy land for affordable housing developments based on current use, as per established Local Plans, rather than on “hope value”, by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961.

4. National Planning policy amendments, so that house-builders are pro-actively encouraged to incorporate the provision of ‘truly affordable’ homes in their development projects, supporting Local Authorities to challenge the reneging of these duties on ‘viability assessment’ grounds.

The Chairman invited the proposer, Cllr W Fredericks, to introduce the motion.

Cllr Fredericks set out the motion as follows:

‘Homelessness has increased by 40% in North Norfolk over the course of the last 3 years, reflecting similar pressures in District and Borough Councils throughout England

This number continued to increase and between 01 April and 31 October 2023, 228 households had been assessed as threatened with or were already homeless.

The primary reasons for Homelessness were:

·         Private landlord Eviction:  78

·         Friends and Family no longer able to accommodate: 54

·         Domestic Abuse:38

As at the 31 October 2023 there were 75 households in temporary accommodation.  This was an overall increase of 33% from the same date in 2022. The number of children living in temporary accommodation had also increased by 44% compared to October 2022. This meant that 85 children were living in unstable accommodation and the majority of cases were living without space to play, away from schools, work and support network and sometimes out of District entirely.  It was overwhelmingly disruptive, challenging and mentally harmful.

There was not just a human cost to using Temporary Accommodation, there was also a major financial cost. The Council was only able to reclaim a small proportion of the amount it spent on nightly, bed & breakfast type accommodation. If the Council placed a household in bed & breakfast type accommodation costing £700 per week it was only able to claim £98 of that cost back. The Council’s net costs for purchased TA have risen from £371k in 2021/22 to a forecast figure of £910k for this year.

The Council was constantly exploring options to increase its provision of decent Temporary Accommodation, it was also important that it focussed on longer-term solutions to ensure that a household’s stay in temporary accommodation was as brief as possible and they could secure a more permanent housing solution. In addition to homeless demand pressures, the Council had also seen a significant reduction in the supply of permanent accommodation with a 38% reduction in available properties across Housing Register partners.  The reasons for this reduction were complex but were primarily associated with reduced levels of new-build completions and tenants not wanting to move due to cost-of-living pressures and generally unfavourable economic conditions.

There were currently over 2,500 households on the Housing List and the severe shortage of social rented homes, meant, on average, there were 150 bids for each property advertised through Your Choice Your Home, with additional pressures for family homes with some properties receiving over 300 bids.The private rental sector was out of reach for most applicants as Local Housing Allowance levels for all of North Norfolk residents, had been frozen by Central Government since 2020, based on rent levels in the 2018-19 financial year. Monitoring of private rented homes to let had found only seven homes available with rents within Local Housing Allowance levels so far this year. Real-term spending power for Councils remained substantially below 2010 levels.

The Council was committed to tackling the Homelessness Crisis through all available means. Local Authorities (LAs), regardless of political administration, had been let down by Central Government’s lack of investment in building affordable rented homes and enabling affordable homes for sale to local people. This had left Councils ill-equipped to tackle the current Housing Crisis or develop long-term strategies to mitigate future housing pressures and sustainable market resilience.

Affordable new homes construction performed a pivotal role in addressing the Temporary Accommodation crisis and would be a key contributor to the reduction of supply and demand driven private rental revenue costs for LAs.

In conclusion, Cllr Fredericks said that she also wanted to highlight the extreme stress placed on the Council’s housing teams who were listening to the most vulnerable and desperate members of our communities, with limited resources to help them.

Cllr T Adams seconded the motion and reserved his right to speak.

The Chairman opened the debate.

Cllr Cushing said that he wished to propose the following amendments:

1. Delete “begin” and replace with “re-energise”. This now reads as:

·         “The Leader of the Council, and leaders of the opposition groups, to write to the Secretary of State to re-energise the process of readdressing the challenges to the Housing Crisis.”

2. Amend to added with the addition of: “and the removal of the private rental market disincentives applied over the past 25 years”. This now reads as:

·         “Local Housing Allowance to be urgently increased to realistic levels for Norfolk in line with private rental amounts, and the removal of the private rental market disincentives applied over the past 25 years.”

3. Replace entire wording with:

·         “A government cross party working group to explore how land could quickly be released for sustainable low cost and affordable housing and how house construction, and building conversions to residential, could be ramped up.”

4. Replace entire wording with:

·         “A government cross party working group to explore national planning policy changes to take stricter control of land banks so that land can be quickly built on using innovative housing schemes which transform viability assessments and encourage builders to work alongside Local Authorities to create new, more effective, delivery models. NNDC to task the Planning Policy and Built Heritage Working Party to consider and draft the changes it wants to see to the National Planning Policy Framework to address the affordability, land release and build incentive issues and submit these to central government for action.”

Cllr N Dixon seconded the amendments.

The Chairman advised members that due to the 30 minute time limit for the debating of motions, she proposed that 10 minutes was allowed to debate the amendment.

She invited the proposer of the substantive motion, Cllr Fredericks, to respond to the amendments.

Cllr Fredericks said that she had only had sight of the amendments a few minutes before the start of the meeting and had not had sufficient time to consider them fully and it was not entirely clear what they meant. She briefly addressed them in turn and said that she would not accept any of them. She reiterated that vulnerable refugees were not in any way contributing to the homelessness crisis in North Norfolk. Fleeing domestic abuse and evictions from rental properties were the main causes.

Cllr A Varley said that this was a very important topic and he thanked the Opposition for engaging and bringing forward amendments for debate. However, he would not be supporting them on this occasion as he did not think that they were sufficient.

Cllr T FitzPatrick said that given the importance of the topic, members must not turn it into a political spat. It was imperative to reach a consensus as this would add strength to the views expressed.

Cllr A Brown commented that it was disappointing to have had such short notice of the amendment as this meant it was hard to have a meaningful debate on it. He said that having a roof over your head was not a ‘nice to have’ and that government policy had played ‘fast and loose’ with people’s rights and proposals to introduce a ban on ‘no fault evictions’ had been deferred due to the courts being too busy to cope with the number of breaches of tenancy agreements that landlords would resort to.  He added that the Planning Policy & Built Heritage Working Party was already working on the issue highlighted in the 4^th amendment. He therefore would not be supporting the amendments.

Cllr Dixon then spoke as seconder of the amendment. He said that there were no councillors in the Chamber who would not support the aspirations of the substantive motion and all of them would love to be able to ‘wave a magic wand’ and resolve all of the problems. It was important to come from a common perspective even if a common approach was not shared. He said that this was not a short-term problem and it was important to address the causes not just the symptoms. If the Council continued to focus on the symptoms then it would not succeed and everyone wanted to see success. In conclusion, Cllr Dixon said that the purpose of the amendments was to seek to influence others in higher places to address the causes and increase resources. It also required the Council to explore what more it could do to ‘think outside the box’ and although he accepted Cllr Brown’s point about the Planning Policy & Built Heritage Working Party, he felt there was more to do and he offered to work with the Chairman of the Working Party to look at all options.

Having been duly proposed and seconded, the amendment was put to the vote, with 11 members voting in favour and 22 against. The amendment was therefore not supported.

The Chairman advised members that she would now open the debate on the substantive motion.

Cllr J Toye said that the motion asked for clear actions and he fully supported it.

Cllr C Cushing said that there were wider pressures that were causing problems with housing across the nation. In response to the points raised regarding the amendments coming forward at a late stage, he said that he was also disappointed that the Administration had put forward a motion without consulting with the Opposition at all. If there had been a discussion at an earlier stage it was very likely that a consensus would have been reached. He said that there was a lot of talk about working together but no attempts to reach out at all. He concluded by saying that there were no easy answers to the serious problem of homelessness and the main opposition would be willing to work with the Administration to address the issue.

Cllr L Withington said that she supported the motion and that the statistics quoted within it demonstrated how serious an issue it was, adding that people categorised as a high priority need no longer got a look in. She then gave an example of a local family that she had been supporting and spoke about their experience and the challenges they faced in acquiring a home. It was hard to just support the desperate people in her own ward of Sheringham, let alone everyone across the district. She thanked the Council’s housing officers for their continued hard work in extremely difficult circumstance. Cllr Withington concluded by saying that the Government must acknowledge the severity of the problem and take action.

Cllr L Shires said that every member was there because of North Norfolk residents. She spoke about the many resilient people she had met in the last few years who fought tirelessly for their families and for basic rights. She said that she wanted them to know that the Council heard them and was listening and that members would try and make the situation better.

Cllr M Hankins said that as a newcomer to North Norfolk and the Council, he was shocked by the level of deprivation and homelessness. To call it a crisis was definitely appropriate. He was fully supportive of the motion.

Cllr N Dixon said that he was supportive of the aspirations but was disappointed that that the Administration had not taken the opportunity to make it more heavyweight on actions. Even once the vote was taken and whatever the outcome, there was an opportunity to work across the benches to find a solution. He said that the Opposition wanted to support the motion and they wanted to do even more.

Cllr C Ringer reminded the Opposition that at the last meeting of Full Council on 20 September, they had put forward a motion on Blakeney surgery which was supported unanimously. Like that, this motion also required cross-party support to show the strength of feeling about the issue of homelessness in the district. He said that nothing in the motion was politically motivated and he urged all members to support it.

Cllr T Adams spoke as seconder of the motion. He addressed Cllr Cushing’s point regarding consultation with the opposition and said that there had been plenty of opportunity for all members to fully engage on policy matters during the development of the Corporate Plan. He then said that it was heartening to see so many councils coming together to discuss big issues such as homelessness and agree on a shared position. He concluded that by saying that the situation could not continue. The Autumn statement had not included any substantive proposals that would effect real change. A re-alignment was needed to deal with homelessness as a national priority and the local housing allowance needed to be raised to keep in line with costs and with temporary accommodation costs escalating at a shocking pace, many more councils would be issuing Section 114 notices as they simply would not be able to cope with the financial impact. Cllr Adams concluded by saying that a national approach was needed to deal with extremely challenging circumstances. A credible national housing plan was urgently needed. He asked all members to support the motion.

Having been duly proposed and seconded, the motion was put to the vote and it was

RESOLVED unanimously to call for

1. The Leader of the Council, and the leaders of opposition groups, to write to the relevant Secretary of State to begin the process of readdressing the challenges to the Housing Crisis.

2. Local Housing Allowance to be urgently increased to realistic levels for North Norfolk. In line with private rental amounts

3. Central Government policy to support Councils to buy land for affordable housing developments based on current use, as per established Local Plans, rather than on “hope value”, by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961.

4. National Planning policy amendments, so that house-builders are pro-actively encouraged to incorporate the provision of ‘truly affordable’ homes in their development projects, supporting Local Authorities to challenge the reneging of these duties on ‘viability assessment’ grounds.