Predicted flooding

No joke but on 1 April Southwark Council became responsible for flood prevention.

Initial work suggests the following areas are liable for a 1 in 100 year flooding event:

– Herne Hill area (i.e Half Moon Lane)

– Champion Park area

– Area between Peckham Park Road and Asylum Road.

– Area bounded by Willow Brook, Commercial Way, Southampton Way, Well Way and Saint George’s Way.

– Area bounded by Camberwell Road, Camberwell New Road and Wyndham Road.

– Dulwich Park area

– Belair Park area along Croxted Road

In theory it should mean that flooding events such as the Dulwich 2004 flooding of costing over £1M will be less likely if Southwark Council gets its flood prevention right and encourages us all to take simple but effective measures.

So I’m looking forward to Southwark Council quickly releasing its assessments and guidance of what Southwark Council will such as changes at Belair Park and what households and businesses can do.

Food waste recycling

Southwark Council has been piloting a food waste recycling scheme and fortnightly rubbish collections involving 10,000 homes for many months now. It has been undertaken on homes with direct access to its street and this type of waste collection has been undertaken – not much to learn from this. Unsurprisingly having chosen the keenest recyclers for the pilot its been a success.

At a review with the Environmental Scrutiny Committee it has been agreed to my proposals to try offering blue recycling wheelie bins – sadly only to homes in Crebor Street which feels like tokenism – and to extend the pilot to the Friern Road blocks of flats. The blue wheelie bins have been repeatedly requested from keen recycling families who generate lots of recycling and are sick of multiple blue boxes and bags. Flats because the vast majority of homes in Southwark are flats. So without including flats we’ll discover how to make a system work for such homes and never reach the doubling of recycling to 44% that the Labour administration have promised by 2014.

The other element I pushed for at that committee was to extend the pilot to all Southwark street properties ASAP. So I was delighted to see that this is now planned to happen in the Autumn to add 35,000 homes.

We then need to see how we can extend this recycling to all remaining properties.  Without these remaining properties they’ll never reach 44%.

Council rent crisis

Labour run Southwark Council has caused as computer error results in many wrong council rent statements being issued.

This all came to light when one tenant received a statement asking for £600 more than it should have.

Frighteningly the Labour run council housing department doesn’t know what went wrong so can’t tell who received incorrect statements. So they are having to have all statements issued again – that’s 50,000.

As they don’t know what went wrong their is no guarantee the new statement run wont also be riddle with mistakes.

If you receive a council housing statement that you think might be wrong please get in touch with me and I’ll get it fully checked out for you.

Decent Council Housing

The coalition minister Grant Shapps has allocated £76.9M to Southwark to do up its council housing. That’s £76.9m more than 13 years of the past Labour government. Fab news. Lambeth has been allocated £100.5M and Lewisham £94.5M.

The grant allocation come in 2012/13 & 2013/14 after the local councils have proved they can spend the money wisely.

 Southwark had applied for £129M but clearly its application wasn’t as convincing as we’d all have all liked.

Southwark Housing – will it be less local?

As part of the proposed Southwark Labour budget cuts they’ve chosen to close all eight local council housing offices. All housing management will take place from

Tooley Street

in the very north of the borough and new offices to be found and rented in the Peckham area in the centre of the borough.

Any contact with council housing officers will be via another telephone call centre, via the internet or face to face at one of these two new housing locations or a pre arranged visit for those less able bodied tenants. It probably spells the end of Area Housing Forums – the Dulwich one is really effective at highlighting local problems, sharing experiences between local estates and getting local councillors engaged.

I can see a lot more time in the future by council officers spent travelling. I get the merits of centralisation for those bits of Southwark that involve few site visits. And for some of the housing function centralising those into one location makes sense. But by definition housing officers should be spending most of their time out and about visiting residents in council homes. Keeping them devolved in local offices makes more sense in helping to keep such officers out there OR they stay in the new central ivory towers and have much less idea of what’s going on.

Finding a new Peckham office to rent seems really strange idea. You only need a smaller local office than the current one.

What do you think possible to reduce costs while creating an even more local service?

Southwark Decent Homes

Labour led Southwark Council have announced that over the next four financial years capital investment of £215M will be made to bring the last 33% of council homes up to the Decent Homes standard with a funding gap of £68. To bring these homes up to the Southwark Decent Homes standard will cost £529M.

The coalition government recently announced a fund of £1.6 billion for local councils to bring all residential council properties up to Decent Homes standards, without having to transfer the properties to a housing association or Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). The previous Labour government insisted that council tenants vote to transfer their tenancies into an ALMO, in order to get access to the money.

Southwark Council is currently preparing a £68M bid to the Government in order to bring the existing council housing stock in Southwark up to the Decent Homes standard. I’m delighted to back this new bid for government money to improve our local council homes. It’s thanks to coalition Lib Dem ministers unlocking access to this money for boroughs like Southwark that such a bid can even be made. Brilliant that Labours crazy rules that discriminated against council tenants are going. A victory for common sense and a victory for council tenants. The only concern I have is the quality of the bid Southwark Labour will make.

But this will only get us to the Decent Homes standard which is such a misnomer. When Lib Dems led the council we consulted all Area Housing Forums on behalf of all council tenants – I remember being present at the Dulwich one when it was discussed. Dilemma of fixing up lots of homes with small problems or starting at the extreme end with a few homes with lots of deep big expensive problems was discussed. Overall most people thought a mix of both volume Decent Homes and fixing the very worst would be ideal. Importantly they all agreed the Decent Homes standard wasn’t high enough so a Southwark Decent homes that includes security doors etc was agreed.

At the current rate of spend it will take 10 years to reach the Southwark Decent Homes standard. The first four years to meet the very basic Decent Homes standard is being mapped out by Southwark Labour. Not taking into account the Southwark Decent Homes standard will make it ultimately a bit more expensive – not putting in entry phone wiring with electrical rewiring for example.

With a change of political leadership in 2014 to Southwark Lib Dems we can get back on with meeting that higher Southwark Decent Homes standard that tenants made clear they wanted.

Fuel Poverty

Fuel Poverty is when someone needs to spend over 10% of their income after tax to keep warm. The point at which they have to start deciding whether to eat or keep warm. Clearly the Winter Fuel and Cold Weather payments help and will remain.

In the last five years the proportion of homes in Fuel Poverty rose from 2.8million households in 2007 to 4.6million households in 2009. This is largely from energy price rises but also where home insulation has taken place its not sufficiently reached the most vulnerable.

A few weeks ago the Green Deal was announced which energy companies will support via Energy Company Obligations aimed at poorer customers. This will initially target poorer homes and undertake the hard as well as easy insulation e.g. solid wall insulation. This will take time to implement on all UK homes. While the Green Deal takes effect, and from April 2011, by law energy companies will have to give rebates to more of their most vulnerable customers – the Warm Home Discount. This discount is expected to help 2million households a year to the tune of £1.1billion a year.

That clearly leaves a gap so the speed of the Green Deal implementation will be crucial to end Fuel Poverty by 2016.

 

Decent Homes money

Under the past Labour government local councils could only access extra funding to bring their homes up to the Decent Homes standard was if they transferred all their council homes into a Housing Association or an Arms Length Management Organisation such as Lambeth Living which all Lambeth Council homes were transferred to.

It was clear that nationally Labour didn’t trust local councils to deliver Decent Homes or had developed an aversion to council housing being provided. Very weird.

The new coalition has no such aversion. It’s in the process of changing the rules so councils can also apply for extra funds to make homes Decent. With the truly appalling track record of Lambeth Living it is probably time to disband it and take it back into Lambeth Council OR transfer if residents prefer transfer it into a Housing Association. I’d hope the former. This is exactly what Unison in Lambeth have asked for and in this instance I have to agree with their Jon Rogers.

This also means that the now Labour led Southwark Council doesn’t have any excuse to transfer out Southwarks council housing. This is good news as this felt a real risk after what happened in Lambeth.

Southwark Decent Homes

I was chuffed to find out that the Southwark Council Stock Condition report, which has been in the offing for 18months, has finally announced its results.

It transpires that instead of 53% of Southwark’s council homes meeting or exceeding the Decent Homes standards, in fact 65.3% meet or exceed these standards and with the budget the Lib Dems set in place for this year it will should be close to 70% by financial year end. The progress is slow as we consulted all housing forums to ask whether we should fix lots of properties with small problems first or fix the small number of properties with major problems and the worst living conditions. Resident feedback was to fix the worst first. Unfortunately these are clearly the most expensive. So it is slow work even when we were spending £80M a year!

This Stock Condition report was one outcome of closing the previously separate Housing Directorate which is now being recreated under a Labour led Southwark Council. The old housing department was clearly out of control to not even know the state of Southwarks properties with any accuracy. Whether the new Housing Director is needed or not is a mute point. But we can say things dramatically better than they were.

Council Housing finance

At last some common sense is being blown into the labyrinth of council housing finance.

Currently councils collect all council rents and right to buy receipts and pass them to the treasury. The treasury then skims £200Million pounds – king of like a tax on council housing – and then passes it back as it sees fit to every council with council housing. The money it passes back is designed to fund the long term borrowing to build the council housing in the first place. Clearly this doesn’t encourage paying of council housing debts.

The proposed changes are that councils keep the rents they collect and right to buy receipts. But they have to pay the council housing debt interest and principle. The full details will come out after the Comprehensive Spending Review announced on the 20 October. It could mean Southwark borrow more based on the rental income it receives and use this borrowing to catch up with decades of under funding for maintenance. IT could build more council housing.

So this is potentially good news for councils run carefully and thoughtfully to use these new freedoms.