Issue - meetings

Background:

This report sought the Cabinet’s views on a proposal for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) development programme to be included within the Council’s Capital Programme and to use the HRA Headroom to fund the programme.

It was noted that the new “self-financing“ regime for the HRA came into place on 1 April 2012. As part of the self-financing settlement the Council was given a maximum debt cap and the difference between this and the actual debt was known as “headroom”. The HRA headroom available as at April 2013 was £5.5m and this was estimated to increase by approximately £800,000 per annum to £9.397m in year five of the programme (2017/2018), once the annual provision for debt repayment had been taken into account and assuming no new borrowing was undertaken.

It was proposed to increase Medway’s existing housing stock by using the available headroom to finance a house-building programme and to consider substantial remodelling or refurbishment of some existing properties where appropriate.

This report suggested a draft programme for future activity. The programme included both the regeneration of currently owned assets such as existing garages and sheltered schemes as well as new development on land acquired either directly, or in partnership with local contractor/developers. Reports on individual HRA projects or groups of projects would be submitted to Cabinet for approval to proceed.

It was noted that the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee had considered this report on 19 September 2013. Details of the Committee’s consideration and recommendations were set out in the report.

During the discussion on this item it was noted that reference to ‘Davenport Road’ within the report should be amended to read ‘Davenport Avenue’ and ‘Winchester Avenue’ should read ‘Winchester Way’.

Reasons:

This proposed development programme would both improve and add to the HRA’s existing housing stock, which will benefit existing tenants and Medway residents that qualify for affordable housing.