Decision details

On 11th April 2023 a decision was made to accept £3.04m of government Local Authority Housing Fund grant to obtain and refurbish property in order to provide sustainable housing for those unable to secure their own accommodation and are who here under specific schemes for people from Ukraine and Afghanistan. Also to fully approve an initial capital budget of £250k funded by this grant to initiate technical design work.

In light of technical design work and following a further review of the properties included in the programme, it has been concluded that the three former social rented units requiring refurbishment could be more productively and expediently deployed as temporary accommodation to meet the Council statutory homelessness obligations. In consultation with Property Board it has been agreed that these three units will be removed from the programme. These will be replaced by extending the number of open market purchases within the LAHF programme thus maintaining the overall programme size of 22 units of accommodation.

To remove the three existing former social housing units from the LAHF programme and to authorise the Council through Aequus to make offers for suitable open market purchases to support the LAHF programme and, subject to meeting the business case criteria, progress to purchase.

Option 1 – redeploy these properties from the LAHF programme for use as temporary accommodation and find alternative properties on the open market that will allow us to meet the programme requirements.

Option 2 - Continue with work to fully refurbish the properties with risk of failing to meet the LAHF programme requirements and lose the opportunity to assist with meeting the Council’s statutory homelessness obligations.