Council under Fire for Withholding Hardship Cash

A council has come under fire for withholding £2 million of emergency hardship cash. Labour-led Lambeth Council was branded ‘tight fisted and hypocritical’ by Liberal Democrat opponents, after they refused nearly half of the requests for discretionary housing payment. The borough was also attacked for only spending £148,000 of a £1.6 million pot to provide crisis grants and loans. This is in addition to a £1.5 million DHP allocation, of which £580,000 has been spent. By the end of October 1,953 requests for emergency loans and grants had been received but only 439 were accepted, the Liberal Democrats claimed. They said £600,000 intended for grants had been diverted into ‘community projects.’ Read more on Inside Housing.

Cash Incentive for Communities That Accept New Housing

Communities that accept the building of new homes in their areas will be rewarded will cash, the planning minister, Nick Boles, has announced. Neighbourhoods that create housing development plans and get the backing of local people in a referendum will be given 25% of the revenues from the Community Infrastructure Levy that arises from the development they choose to accept.  The cash incentive will be paid directly to parish and town councils who will be free to spend it on community projects. Read more on the CLG website.

Mark Prisk Blog - Involving Tenants in Home Improvements

While the Decent Homes programme makes radical changes to tenants’ homes day-to-day, tenants needn’t wait for their landlords to deal with the basic repairs that can make a real difference to their standard of living.  For example, the Tenant Cashback scheme offers residents with an eye for DIY a budget of up to £500 a year to tackle repairs, decorate their homes or hire a skilled professional to do it for them.  Some social landlords have already seen the benefit of the scheme and are training their tenants to take on simple fixes like leaky taps and fitting doors, and I hope that in time, this will be the norm instead of the exception.  And our new Community Cashback scheme paves the way for tenant groups to take over services in their shared spaces, such as gardening, cleaning, and security. They can then re-invest any savings they make into community projects to improve their area.

Councils Bite into New Homes Bonus

More than 70 per cent of councils in England have not spent their share of £200 million new homes bonus cash on rewarding their communities. The bonus, which sees the government match the council tax on any new properties for the first six years, was designed to incentivise communities to support development by providing or improving local facilities. However, following freedom of information requests to all 349 councils which received the bonus last April, just 29 per cent are using the cash to support housing development or other community projects. Of the 331 local authorities that responded, 54 per cent said the money had been allocated to the general council fund and 18 per cent had not made a decision on how it would be spent. Read more on Inside Housing.