Tenants Talk - Taunton Deane Borough Council

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Council Housing FinancesA RADICAL change in the way council housing isfinanced is paving the way to Taunton DeaneBorough Council building its first houses for thefirst time in two decades.The Council is preparing to become a builderagain as it takes control of its entire housingrental income from April.Taunton Deane collects around £21 million a yearin rent from its 6,000 homes – but has had tohand back around a third to the Government withthe money redistributed around the country.But now the system is being reformed with theCouncil allowed to “buy its way” out of the oldsystem with the benefit of being allowed to keepthe full rental income.And this will release money for investment, notjust in keeping existing properties in good repair,but by building new homes for the future.Cllr Jean Adkins, who holds the HousingServices portfolio, said: “We are entering anexciting new era of self-financing which will allowus to build new Council Houses for the first timein decades.“To this end, we have included a DevelopmentFund in our Business Plan and are currentlyworking up plans for a small scheme to kick-starta programme of building for the future which hasbeen welcomed by the Tenant ServicesManagement Board and Tenants’ Forum.”The Chair and Vice Chair of the Tenant’s Forumattended the recently held meeting of theWellington Tenants & Residents Association andit was decided to wind up the group.During the past 12/18 months ill health hasprevented some of the Committee Membersfrom being active and they have decided to stepdown, insufficient numbers of Tenants attendingmeetings was also a considerationAs a result of the closure of the WellingtonTenant’s and Residents Association Peggy-JeanSteele, Susan Anderson and Dennis Galpin(Committee Members) will no longerFrom April – thestart of the newfinancial year –the Council issetting aside£300,000 for itsdevelopment fund and this is due to rise to £1million by 2015-16.The Year One funding will allow the Council to do“groundwork” – exploring what sort of homes aremost needed locally, identifying potential sitesand ensuring there’s a team to deliver anyschemes.The number of new Council homes will bemodest to start with as expertise and financebuilds up. The build figures will depend on a hostof factors from the type of property – house, flator bungalow; site costs and the design of theproperty, for example whether it is build to veryhigh eco standards to cut fuel bills to a minimum.Tenants have been fully involved in the newapproach through the Tenants ServicesManagement Board and the Tenants’ Forum.The Taunton Deane’s last Council-built homeswere eight bungalows in St Michael’s Crescentback in 1993. Finance rules then changed withmoney being directed towards housingassociations rather than local authorities.Wellington Tenants and Residents Association8automatically be members of the Tenants’Forum.The equipment bought for the, now closed,Youth Group has been re-deployed in BishopsLydeard and is being well used.The members who attended the meeting hopethat it will be possible to reform in the future. Itwould be great if Tenants/Leaseholders in theWellington/Rockwell Green area came into beingonce more.Maureen Sloman & Wendy Powell(Local Tenants Forum Members)
Youth InitiativeThe Youth Initiative Fund is a ring fenced sum of moneyallocated by the Tenants’ Forum. Applications werereceived from several organisations and grants made toseven groups with cheques presented in January at theTenants’ Forum monthly meeting.We have received thank you letters as shown and it isnice to know it is being well spent.9
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Tenants Talk - Taunton Deane Borough Council

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