Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Committee received a report of the Executive Director of Community and Children’s Services, concerning the City of London Corporation’s Housing Asset Management Strategy 2025 for approval. Following an introduction of the report, the Committee asked questions and made comments, as follows:

The Committee heard that the stock condition survey would be undertaken by an external provider. There was a risk that investment priorities would shift once the stock condition survey data was available.

Concerning the ambition for 700 new homes by 2026, the Committee heard that this included homes that were already under development, and there was an ambition for a further 500 by 2037. Most new homes would be located outside of the City of London on existing estates, and there were plans for additional homes in Southwark.

Progress would be predominantly reported to the Housing Management and Almshouses Sub Committee and would include KPIs. Responding to a query on resources, officers said that the resource need had been identified, with some resource already in place for the preparatory work. It was likely that this would be scaled up for implementation, delivery, and management.

A Member noted the figure on the Annual Repars & Maintenance Spend and queried whether this was based on previous spend and would be enough to meet needs. The response was that, comparatively, the spend was high for the organisation’s size and was indicative of a lack of investment and planned maintenance programmes and reflected a higher proportion of responsive repairs. There was a process of shifting to planned spend rather than responsive spend, and this figure was likely to not reduce until ways of working had been changed.  It was raised that a figure had been provided to Finance Committee for spend on maintenance across the City Corporation, and whether Annual Repairs & Maintenance Spend was reflected in that figure. Noting that the HRA was treated separately, it was agreed that this would be followed up with separately following the meeting.

Following some questions, it was requested that officers provide a briefing on s106 for members of the Committee.

RESOLVED: - That Members:

·       Approve the Housing Asset Management Strategy 2025 as the guiding framework for the management, maintenance and investment in the City of London’s housing stock.

·       Note the commitment to refresh the strategy in early 2026 following completion of the full stock condition survey programme.