Following a public consultation which ended in December the Thanet
District Council Cabinet Meeting on 22 January approved a new Housing
Strategy for the area.
Cllr David Green, Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning Services,
explained: “We have to introduce a new housing strategy in line with the
Local Government Act, 2003, and a number of changes have taken place
which we needed to address such as the National Housing Strategy, the
Comprehensive Spending Review and the Welfare and Benefit Reforms. This
strategy will apply until 2016.
"Our principal aim is to maximise the delivery of affordable housing.
We also need to make better use of the existing housing stock, and this
includes tackling empty properties, especially in ways which also
support our regeneration and economic development initiatives. We also
recognise the importance of managing the impact of the new welfare
reforms and of ensuring that vulnerable people have access to good
quality housing, enabling them to live independently.”
The Housing Strategy is accompanied by an Action Plan, which will be
updated annually, setting out how the key priorities will be delivered.
Featuring significantly in the plan is the multi-agency work centred
around bringing empty properties back into use. It also incorporates
measures to improve the standards of private rented properties and for
closely monitoring the impact of the Welfare and Benefit reform.
Responses to the consultation were supportive of the strategy and
comments received have been incorporated into the final document.
Cllr Green added: “It was pleasing that the feedback from our
partners and stakeholders was positive and supportive of the strategy.
We can now focus on delivering the key priorities through the various
measures in the Action Plan.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please note comments that may be libellous, comments that may be construed as offensive and anonymous derogatory comments about real people will be deleted. Also note the facility to leave anonymous comment will be turned of during periods when I am unable to monitor comment, this will not affect people commenting who are signed on to their blogger accounts.
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.