To approve the draft housing strategy for community consultation and to agree the outline consultation process and timeline.

Developing a Local Housing Strategy provides local authorities with a strategic opportunity to consider the operation of the housing system in its area and to plan strategically for meeting current and future need and demand, and the effective delivery of housing-related services over the lifetime of the strategy.

That:

a)    The draft housing strategy, at Appendix 1, is approved for community consultation;

b)    That approval is given for the outline consultation process and timeline, as set out at Appendix 2.

1.            There is no statutory requirement for the council to produce a housing strategy. The Cabinet Member for housing, regulatory services and community safety could decide not to endorse the strategy and agree that no further work is done on this document. This is not recommended as it is considered good practice to have a Housing Strategy in place. The strategy gives an oversight of the work that the council does directly related to housing; the council does not have another document that brings all of these elements together.

2.            A community consultation plan has been drafted in order to give the wider community an opportunity to review and comment on the draft local housing strategy before it is submitted to Cabinet for approval. As the document is not statutory, there is no requirement to do this. The local housing strategy could be published without going through a consultation process. This is not recommended as it is considered good practice to gain the views of the wider community on the local housing strategy and share with them the wide range of housing related work undertaken by the council.