New Local Plan

The aims from the council's Corporate Housing, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping strategy 2018 - 2028:

- Prioritise the supply of safe, locally affordable housing
- Regeneration and growth to create inclusive, healthy places to live and thrive
- Encourage good quality housing design, management and maintenance
- Support people to live independently in their own homes and avoid homelessness
- Any instance of homelessness to be brief and non-recurrent.

No, I agree with these.

-We have creatively met housing need while enhancing the character of the area
-We are leading the way on green and innovative travel.
-- We visibly celebrate our heritage and culture.
- Young people feel invested in the future of Southend.
- There is a good balance of quality retail, residential and social space in our attractive town centres.

I would support exploring a different approach. DM7 and CP8 require revision.

I am unfamiliar with current planning policy around supported and specialist housing but would be keen to work with planners to understand this and help shape going forward.

In the next phase of consultation It could be useful to separate out planning policy and questions for a)supported and specialist housing, and b)affordable housing, and explain the existing approaches to both.

Some comments in respect of ‘special needs’ and affordable housing are provided below.

Special needs housing
The term 'special needs' housing could be seen as a little contentious therefore would suggest using different terms and sub terms alongside definitions of what they mean. Going forward, I think it would be useful to include different explanations for supported housing, sheltered housing, residential , extra care, adapted housing, all of which would fall within a wider definition of 'specialist' housing but are different products.
In terms of understanding, and responding to the need for supported and specialist housing, it would be helpful to jointly write the brief for future iterations of the SHMA between housing, commissioning and planning, to ensure that the need for different types of housing are understood and used to inform both planning and commissioning decisions.
In addition, at present when planning applications come in for, for example, supported housing for homeless people (e.g. from HARP), or for older persons accommodation, we don't necessarily know the model is one which we would be seeking to encourage. I would be interested in seeing how, through planning we can ensure that the type of supported/specialist housing being delivered is not only responsive to an evidenced need, but is also of a type/quality/model we and our CCG partners would encourage/ would fit with our own strategic aims.

Affordable housing
Would also be keen for Housing & Social Inclusion to work closely with Strategic Housing ahead of the next phase of consultation on the policy proposals regarding affordable housing, reviewing DM7 and CP8 to maximise chances to meet the need for sub market, rented accommodation. Linked to this, would be keen to jointly write the brief for the next SHMA update so that we can understand the demand for different types of affordable housing and which groups are/are not excluded from accessing each product.
Going forward, would be keen for joint discussions and policy development around:
- different types of 'affordable housing' and which income groups can or cannot access each product.
- Policy approaches towards different affordable housing products to ensure each one remain as affordable as possible to the group to which that product is intended to serve.
- Revising the current tenure mix to reflect the SHMA and Housing Register identified, unmet need for sub market rented accommodation.
- Increasing policy compliant affordable housing contributions.
- incentivising policy compliance, potentially through fast-tracking compliant applications.
- Would also be keen in exploring the option to require publication of viability studies/a summary of how much affordable housing was required to make a site policy compliant and how much was later supplied.
- When making housing allocations to those in greatest need on our register, Housing Associations can refuse nominations for affordable rent if they do not pass their own 'affordability checks', so opportunities to address the rents at planning policy stage would be desirable.
Most people are surprised to hear that we currently have to exclude low income households from our housing register, as there is not enough stock just to accommodate those the Housing Act requires us to give ‘reasonable preference’ to. However, with increased social/affordable rent supply, we could get closer to accommodating the 1, 400+ on the register, reduce the length of time homeless families spend temporary accommodation (saving the council money and reducing risk of breaching legislation) and potentially open the register out to local low income families who are struggling to pay their rent, who are presently excluded. (Enabling low income households to access social housing would not only beneficial for the individual’s own health and wellbeing, but also, through enabling them to have a disposable income, for towns prosperity)

Targeted communications with these groups, designed in an accessible way.

Looking at the latest evidence from representative bodies. i.e Housng Lin.

Encouraging apprenticeships and training opportunities are maximised i.e through S106 requirements.

Close collaboration with our Adaptations team and OT's and consideration of PSI and accessible lifetime homes.

Yes. We should exceed mandatory building regs.

Yes