Sizing up services

East Cambridgeshire District Council’s housing services is proof that bigger is not always better. The small department is punching way above its weight in its bid to provide affordable housing for local people

The council transferred its stock to Hereward Housing, part of the Sanctuary Group, in 1993 but still has a small department dealing with new build and issues such as homelessness.

Its head of housing Jane Hollingworth believes that the department’s size is what makes it so successful. She says: “We are very much in touch with the community on the ground and because we are a small organisation I know exactly what is going on in planning or building control and I know everyone, so I have got personal relationships with the people I need to talk to. In a larger organisation you lose that ease of getting information and people understanding where you are coming from and why you want to do things. Small organisations really do work well in that sense.”

The council is working to keep up the momentum for providing new homes in rural areas and has successfully completed schemes on rural exception sites in the villages of Burwell, Fordham and Kennet, with the collaboration and assistance of local parish councils.

“We have got very little nimbyism in East Cambridgshire from parishes so we are very lucky,” explains Hollingworth. “Most of the parishes are very keen and supportive because they see their services closing and are painfully aware of the consequences if the villages die.”

As a fairly rural authority on the edge of a major growth area, which will see the market towns of E ly, Littleport and Soham, and the city of Cambridge expand, new-build is important but attracting funding is not always easy. “We expect that in the next few years the growth area will suck in most of the available grant funding for new build so we have to be fairly pro-active to make sure we get our share,” explains Hollingworth.

The council works in partnership with housing associations and developers to provide new affordable homes and liaised with Persimmon to put forward candidates from the council waiting list to buy properties through Open Market Homebuy, kickstarting a stalled scheme.

The council also works with HomeBuy Agent Orbit to help people with a household income of less than £60,000 to buy or rent an affordable home. New build is not the only solution to combating the affordable housing crisis and the council has strong links with the private sector, as well as a strategy for bringing empty homes back into use.

“Most of the empty rural properties belong to old local families, they have become vacant and the families have not done anything with them, so they are just sitting there,” explains Hollingworth. “Some are seasonably occupied by workers in the agricultural industry and we have an issue with empty properties belonging to stud farms and the horse racing industry. “If we can get a tenant into the place everybody is happy and we are working with the landlords to bring the homes into use rather than using compulsory purchase orders.”

Homelessness is another area where the council has made great strides and it has used its strong links with the private sector to help keep people out of temporary accommodation. It is one of the few councils that has met Government targets for reducing the use of temporary accommodation so much so that it has recently closed one of its hostels due to a lack of use. In partnership with King Street Housing the council runs a private sector leasing scheme for non-priority homeless. “We have mainly been placing people in private sector tenancies through the rent deposit scheme and the private sector leasing scheme and have housed 50 families in the last couple of years,” explains Hollingworth.

She continued: “The other thing that has helped us is that the local housing allowance rates will pay the average rent levels so the private sector is a viable alternative for people on housing benefit level. “It is a message we would like to send back to Government that keeping the allowance levels high enough for us to be able to keep people in private sector rentals is keeping people out of temporary accommodation and bed and breakfast.”

The current housing strategy ends this year and the council is looking to the future where homelessness and new-build are still set to feature strongly, continuing to create a big impact from this small department.