Agenda and minutes

Test document from Joe Bloggs

There were no declarations of interest.

a)  To agree the Minutes of the previous meeting held on 20 February, 2020

b)  Any matters arising

The Minutes of the meeting held on 20 February, 2020 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Briefing Note of the Director of Housing and Transformation

Cllr Akhtar welcomed Cllr Welsh to his first meeting as Cabinet Member Housing and Communities. Cllr Akhtar thanks the previous Cabinet Member, Cllr T Khan, for the work he had undertaken in the role.

The Scrutiny Board received a presentation which provided an update in relation to Housing and Homelessness.

The presentation included the following:-

·  The Council had been awarded for £782,000 from Government to support rough sleepers over the winter period as the City’s night shelters would not be able to open due to the pandemic.

·  A summary of achievements and successes in relation to the One Coventry Housing and Homelessness Strategy was provided. These included that there were no families or singles in Bed and Breakfast accommodation; 220+ rough sleepers had been accommodated due to Covid; 26 refurbished properties at Caradoc Hall had opened in December 2019 delivering a £1million saving; Housing continued to work with Register Social Landlords to deliver affordable housing and Cornerstone had been contracted to deliver 103 permanent Local Housing Allowance properties by April 2022.

·  Potential future issues were highlighted including the delay on evictions which was due to end on 20 September 2020 and the potential impacts of a likely recession.

·  Housing demand was summarised – there were 13,600 households on the housing register, with only 1342 properties available last year, of which 9.5% were age restricted to over 55+. The greatest demand was for family accommodation with an average of 284 bids being received for a 3 bedroom property.

·  Frank Walsh House had been used to accommodate singles in response to the Covid crisis – those still being accommodated there would be rehoused shortly and families moved into the properties by November.

The Scrutiny Board questioned officers on aspects of the presentation and received responses on the following issues including:-

·  The role and responsibility of Landlords to support tenants and how the Council could support to tenants/landlords to maintain tenancies.

·  There had been rough sleepers in Coventry over the past six months and the reasons for this were multiple. Some were individuals who were entrenched rough sleepers, some had to leave the accommodation they were in due to family/ relationship breakdowns and some were new to the streets. All on the streets were regularly offered accommodation and the homelessness outreach service operated across the City and not just in the City Centre.

·  There had been success in moving rough sleepers into accommodation for a number of reasons. These included fear of the pandemic, especially from those with underlying health conditions and lack of revenue in the City Centre due to reduced footfall which was an incentive for some to address their substance misuse problems.

·  Over the past 5 month, the Council had prevented the eviction of 450 families through the Homelessness Reduction Act.

·  To date there had not been any Covid-19 outbreaks in the Temporary Accommodation sites. Plans had been drawn up with Public Health to manage temporary accommodation safely should a resident have a positive Coivd-19 test.

·  Work was being undertaken  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Report of the Director of Law and Governance

RESOLVED that the Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board (4) note their Work Programme for 2020/21 and requested the inclusion of the following on their Work Programme;

1)  The City Centre Parking include of city parking and park and ride

2)  Residents Parking Schemes

Any other items of public business which the Chair decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of urgent public business.