Agenda item

Cllr Steve Davies, Portfolio Holder for Housing and Homelessness

The Portfolio Holder thanked the Housing team for the reports presented at the meeting.  There were challenges which needed to be recognised.  He was pleased to attend the Service Showcase earlier in the month and meet with members of the Homelessness team, particularly the outreach worker and mental health worker.

He reported that he had recently visited sites across the District of new and future developments for social and affordable housing. He had visited locations from New Milton to Totton where almost 40 new homes would be built, in addition to the new homes at Ladycross Road in Hythe.  He has also looked at the site of the former Hythe hospital which would provide another 20 homes for local people.  The most innovative of the sites was the former Testwood Club in Totton, a pilot scheme being built to the Future Homes Standard.  The Portfolio Holder was delighted to announce it would be named Penman House, after the Councillor for the area Neville Penman.  

Furthermore, it was necessary to enable construction of affordable homes for young people, what used to be called starter homes.  A Task and Finish Group would be commissioned to consider the opportunities using modern methods of construction for modular housing which would enable the building of sustainable homes quickly and easily.

Cllr Dan Poole, Portfolio Holder Community, Safety and Wellbeing

The Portfolio Holder highlighted the following matters:

·        Safer New Forest Partnership: The summer had been very busy for the Partnership which had held a number of community engagement events in the towns, alongside rural car parks across the national park.   To date, the team had completed 412 surveys across the 12 events and further events were planned over the autumn.  He reported he was delighted to report that the surveys had shown that 98.3% of residents remain satisfied or very satisfied with where they lived (405 residents).

The clerks of all Town and Parish Councils in the District were being asked to complete a ‘community safety survey’ and secondary schools in the District would be sent an online young peoples’ survey.

The findings from these surveys would be published within the Safer New Forest Strategic Assessment which will help inform next year’s Community Safety Partnership Plan.

·        Public Space Protection Orders: Two new Public Space Protection Orders came into force on 1 July 2023, the first one relating to wildfires and the second one prohibiting the feeding and petting of forest animals.

The Community Safety Team had carried out training for partners and the feedback had been very positive. The emphasis focused on engagement and education rather than enforcement. Over the Summer there has been 508 opportunities for engagement but there had been no need to escalate matters further.  The situation would be monitored with partners.

·        Service Showcase: This took place on the 7 September was a great opportunity for all the services within the Portfolio to share their work and for Members and staff to see the wide range of roles that support businesses, residents and the wider community. “Appletree Village” was particularly impressive, which showed the full array of services carried out by the Environmental and Regulation Team.

·        The Emergency Planning service were busy planning for a live exercise in October, which would take place across Hampshire with partners, including the emergency services. This would test plans for severe weather incidents and the impacts on communities to ensure we are prepared to respond.

·        Following on from the Health and Safety Wellbeing Action Plan item, an inaugural Community Forum meeting would take place on 18 October, to tackle the cost-of-living crisis on residents.  Town and Parish Councils, charity and faith groups had been invited.  An update on this would be provided at a future meeting.