Working Well - Community

Introduction

Housing has an important impact on health and well-being: good quality, appropriate housing in places where people want to live has a positive influence on reducing deprivation and health inequalities by facilitating stable/secure family lives.  This in turn helps to improve social, environmental, personal and economic well-being.  Conversely, living in housing which is in poor condition, overcrowded or unsuitable will adversely affect the health and well-being of individuals and families.

The value of good housing needs to been seen as more than ‘bricks and mortar’. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG, 2006) define a decent home as ‘a home that is warm, weatherproof and has reasonably modern facilities’. Failure to address the investment needs of poor housing conditions will have a detrimental impact on the occupiers’ health and well-being.

A decent, affordable home is an essential requirement for tackling health inequalities and reducing the burden on health and social care services and cost to the public purse.

Housing

Hartlepool’s housing market is defined as a self contained housing market, as communities and local government guidelines suggest that anything over 70% internal migration is a self contained housing market. In Hartlepool internal migration levels are 80.2% using census 2011 migration data. The three biggest reasons for households moving within Hartlepool were wanting a larger home, 16.7%, being forced to move, 11.3% and wanting own home/live independently, 10.5%. Overall, the vast majority (74.1%) of properties are houses, 12.1% are bungalows, 13.6% are flats/apartments and maisonettes and 0.9% are other types of property including park homes/caravans. Of all occupied properties, 11.3% have one bedroom, 29.2% have two bedrooms, 43.6% have three bedrooms and 15.9% have four or more bedrooms.

The tenure profile of the Hartlepool Borough area, based on survey evidence, is 60.2% of occupied dwellings are owner occupied, 16.0 % are private rented (including tied accommodation), 23.1% are rented from a social housing provider and 0.7% are intermediate tenure dwellings.

Up to 2014 median house prices in Hartlepool were lower than both the England and north east averages. Median house prices in Hartlepool peaked at £115,000 in 2013, but fell to £101,250 in 2014.

The gap between the median house price in Hartlepool and England has widened from 2000 to 2014. Within Hartlepool the median house prices have a range of £145,500 across the wards, from Victoria’s £57,000 to Rural West’s £202,500. Two wards, Victoria and Manor House, have upper quartile prices below £100,000.

The level of affordability of housing in Hartlepool is the second best in the north east, with an income to house price ratio of 3.9, compared with the regional average of 4.6. That means that housing prices are 3.9 times larger than annual salaries, compared with 4.6 times larger for the north east.

Overcrowded housing is most prevalent in the Manor House and Headland & Harbour wards, where 7.1% of housing is overcrowded. For both Hart and Rural West this is less than 2%.

The 2014 Household Survey reviewed the extent to which households were satisfied with the state of repair of their dwellings. Overall 79.6% of respondents expressed satisfaction (43.1% were very satisfied and 36.5% were satisfied); 11.0% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; a total of 9.4% expressed degrees of dissatisfaction, of whom 6.8% were dissatisfied and 2.6% were very dissatisfied.

Within Hartlepool the greatest level of dissatisfaction was in Burn Valley where 1 in 5 were dissatisfied with the state of repair of their dwelling.

Current and future

HOUSING SERVICES ACROSS HBC – SEPTEMBER 2019

 

SERVICE AREA	COUNCIL DEPT/DIVISION	SERVICES PROVIDED	FUTURE INTENTIONS	ANTICIPATED TIMESCALE
Housing Strategy	R&N – Economic Growth and Regeneration	Housing Strategy and Action Plan (including the Homelessness Strategy)	To produce a separate Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy	March 2020
		Registered Provider Liaison and Monitoring: Local lettings Nominations
		Housing Partnership
		Allocations Policy and waiting list management	New Tees Valley Lettings system	October 2019
		Strategic Housing Market Assessment	Review the SHMA	Within 5 years
		Housing Database and monitoring in relation to the Local Plan Monitoring Framework.
Housing Management	R&N – Economic Growth and Regeneration	Housing Market Regeneration	Develop and adopt a multi-agency Housing Regeneration Strategy   Oxford Road Regeneration Study to Regeneration Services Committee	By November 2020       October 2019
		Housing Management of the Council’s Housing Stock: Allocating Letting Rent collection Arrears recovery ASB Repairs Stock condition and planned Maintenance Gas safety Exchanges Estate management Housing Revenue Account management	Complete work to allow repairs reporting on-line.	March 2020
		Development of Affordable Housing Stock: New Build Purchase & Repair of empty homes. Housing Development on Council owned sites	Carry out the first development of affordable homes on a Council site.	March 2021
		Empty Property Purchase Scheme (phase 3)	Acquire and refurbish an additional 8 empty homes.	March 2020
		Social Lettings Agency (Quality Homes Lettings Agency)
		Student Accommodation	Complete and occupy the student accommodation units at Avondene, Church Street	December 2019
		Affordable Housing delivery through S106.
Private Sector Housing	R&N – Environment and Neighbourhoods	Housing Conditions
		Insecure empty homes
		Public health nuisances relating to housing
		Enforcement of standards
		Financial Assistance for owner-occupiers (Grants & Loans)
		Houses in Multiple Occupation, e.g. bedsits, shared houses
		Area Walkabouts
		Unsightly dwellings
		Energy Performance Certificates
		Warm Up Hartlepool scheme	Continue to develop partnership working to attract funding to improve energy efficiency in homes	Ongoing until 2022
		Fuel Poverty	Develop and link a fuel poverty strategy to the Council’s anti-poverty strategy	March 2020
Special Needs Housing	Adult and Community Based Services -Adult Social Care	Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) and Major Adaptations
		Minor Adaptations and Handyman service
		Rehousing Service for people with medical needs
Housing Advice	Childrens and Joint Commissioning Services – Prevention, Safeguarding and Specialist Services	Housing advice and homelessness prevention: Homelessness relief Duty to Refer Rough Sleeper Assertive Outreach (pilot)	Rough Sleeper Count	Winter 2019
		Private Rented Sector Tenancy Relations; Landlord and tenant advice Protection from Eviction Mediation Enforcement
		Supported Housing Coordination and Chair of Supported Housing Panels (Adults and Young people)
		Selective Licensing	Evaluate the current Selective Licensing designation	July 2020
		Good Tenants Scheme	Introduce an on-line service and tenant matching service	December 2020
		VEMT (Vulnerable, Exploited, Missing or Trafficked children)
		Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)
		Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC)
		Safeguarding Boards (Child and Adults)

 

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