West Suffolk Council approves extra funding to combat housing crisis

An investment totalling £612,000 has been approved after a top councillor warned of a district in a ‘housing crisis’.

Yesterday evening, West Suffolk’s lead for housing, Cllr Richard O’Driscoll, asked council members to approve a new housing, homelessness reduction and rough sleeping strategy.

The document built on work already under way to deal with the growing challenges of a district in a ‘housing crisis’.

Cllr O’Driscoll said: “A secure and decent home is a basic human need — without it, residents face a disadvantage in many areas in their lives and often will experience both adverse health and wellbeing as a consequence.

“There are no simple solutions, but this strategy sets out a framework that commits the council to all that it can to deliver the best possible housing outcomes to our residents.

“Many residents are living in overcrowded homes and many residents are living in cold and damp conditions, often in homes in poor repair.”

“Nobody should be in any doubt that, as a community, we have a major challenge around housing.”

The proposals also asked for a £612,000 investment to deal with homelessness across the district.

Broken down, the investment included £50,000 for feasibility studies to bring empty homes into use, £62,000 for a homelessness prevention scheme over two years and £500,000 to continue exploring options to increase the housing supply along the A11, A1307, A14 and the Brandon Commission.

The proposals came at a time when the council reported 2,500 people on its housing register, 1,000 of whom were in high or very high need and many, Cllr O’Driscoll said, had ‘little prospect of being re-housed in the short-term’.

The authority’s homelessness figures also showed a 64 per cent increase in households threatened with homelessness and eligible for prevention duty over the past three years, from 204 during the 2021/22 financial year to 315 in 2023/24 — this is still lower than figures for 2019/20, which sat at 375 households at risk.

In the same period, the number of households assessed as homeless has remained stable at around 570 – slightly higher than the 524 figure for the 2019/20 financial year, but lower than the peak of 681 over the last five years, in 2020/21.

Yesterday’s proposals saw cross-party support with the Conservative leader, Cllr Beccy Hopfeperger, saying although there were still some issues to iron out, the strategy was important and essential.

She said: “There are some areas I feel do need to be explored, however, I do accept this is a working document and strategy that will evolve and flex as policies and actions come forward.

“The true test of the strategy will be in the outcomes it delivers for the residents of West Suffolk and it’s our duty to ensure these are delivered correctly.”

Nevertheless, some members raised issues including insufficient detail, lacking cooperation with private renters, and the Brandon Commission being singled out in the proposals despite other areas also warranting support.

Cllr Tony Brown, representing Haverhill, also raised issues surrounding houses in multiple occupation (HMO), which he argued the strategy was ‘quite weak’.

He pointed out around 1,967 HMOs could be hidden and operating without ever being inspected by the council, 493 of which required a licence and could be ‘potentially unsafe’ under the radar.

He said: “It’s not to say all HMOs are a bad thing, some of them are very well run, but what does concern me are the ones that aren’t run very well.

“It deeply worries they are not getting inspected and we’ve got a huge amount of people that could be being preyed on.”

Cllr Brown spoke of instances where fights had to be broken up, needles were thrown out of the window and neighbours were impacted, with resources committed by the authority ‘nowhere near enough’ to fix these.

He added: “The impact on their neighbours, some who are vulnerable themselves […] is sometimes horrendous.”

“I’m drawing a line in the sand here personally and say I’m not happy personally with it and I think we need to do more.”

Addressing this, Cllr O’Driscoll said the council had committed £177,000 back during the February budget-setting period to target the private sector, but admitted more could be needed.

He said: “We do recognise there is a challenge and we need to strengthen that enforcement.

“It may not be enough — we have to review how that goes, it’s a relatively new initiative and I have seen some improvement.”

“If there is a gap in the service, we need to address that at a future point.”

Cllr O’Driscoll also called on other councillors to come forward if they were worried about specific HMOs in their area.

Yesterday’s investment proposals followed a £1 million investment committed when the council’s budget was set in February, as well as £200,000 extra to replace the Suffolk County Council’s outgoing Housing Related Support (HRS) funding.

In the end, the proposals were approved with 44 votes in favour, five abstentions and no votes against.