Sheffield council house rents go up by 7.7 per cent as city urged to borrow to build more homes

Yesterday’s full council meeting of Sheffield City Council (February 7) also agreed to put up rents for temporary accommodation and garages by the same amount. No increase will be made to the community heating charge which supplies energy to 6,000 homes.

An increase of 6.7 per cent was approved in charges for sheltered housing, burglar alarms and furnished accommodation.

The proposals were opposed by the eight members of the Sheffield Community Councillors Group, who broke away from Labour last year. They argued that the council should borrow to build more homes.

A business plan for the housing revenue account (HRA), which manages spending and income on the council’s housing stock, has set a list of 15 priorities for the service.

The top three priorities are improving the repairs service, reducing delays and improving customer satisfaction, and tackling damp and mould and improving the management of disrepair claims.

Finances

Others include reducing the time that council properties are empty, giving support to tenants to help manage their finances and accelerating the retrofitting of homes to make them more energy-efficient and cheaper to run.

Ambitions to build more council homes have been hit by rising inflation, the business plan states. The council estimates a shortage of 902 affordable homes per year.

The council’s five-year stock increase plan would increase the number of council homes being built or bought by around 1,166 homes by 2029. However, the right for tenants to buy their homes means that the council’s housing stock is predicted to be reduced to around 33,900 by 2053/54, the plan says.

Housing committee chair Coun Douglas Johnson said: “We as a council should be proud of providing this public service. We provide it to over 28,000 households and that makes us the largest landlord in the city.

“Unlike many local authorities who sold off their housing stock, Sheffield didn’t. Admittedly it dabbled with outsourcing when it could, especially with its repairs service; it’s finally brought that back in house and that’s settled down now.”

He praised staff, who work “at Christmas, in the middle of the night, during storms”.

Improvement

Council leader Coun Tom Hunt said that good quality, affordable homes are essential and Sheffield needs more of them.

He said: “Let’s be clear that the HRA account and business plan is under severe pressure because of economic headwinds that are not of this council’s making.

“The fact that, since Liz Truss crashed the economy last October, the interest rates and the cost of borrowing has soared, and has had a direct impact with what we’re able to do with the HRA business account. Nonetheless, this is a plan that we can put forward to improve the quality of tenants’ homes.

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“But I’ll also be clear, we need to be doing better We need to see improvement in the performance of our repairs service, we need to be turning round voids quicker and we need to manage our estates better.”

Voids are council homes that are lying empty.

Coun Hunt said that government housing and regeneration agency Homes England had visited Sheffield yesterday, along with 300 housing professionals. He said that the council is keen to work with them to improve the quality of people’s homes.

Ambitious

Sheffield Community Councillors Group member Coun Bryan Lodge argued: “This is not a criticism of any staff in the council’s housing service. My objection to the HRA report is around the policy, it’s not ambitious.

“We keep hearing ‘ambitious for Sheffield’, ‘we’re ambitious’ – this is not ambitious for tenants and residents of Sheffield. We’ve got problems with the housing repairs and we have the chair of the council’s housing committee that says ‘the housing repairs service has settled down’.

“That’s not the case when you look and there’s £1 million in vacants loss that’s in the report, and yet in members’ questions, it highlights that it’s £500k in the first quarter. It doesn’t match up with the figures in there.

“We’re losing money for managing disrepair teams, an extra over £500k to manage disrepair claims.

“We’ve gone for consultation with tenants and it’s great and they’re telling us their priorities – repairs service, tackling damp and mould, tackling disrepair claims – and it says in the report ‘huge priority around improving repairs’.

“The repairs service, Coun Johnson, has not settled down. We have still got thousands and thousands of outstanding repairs and that’s not good enough for the tenants in this city.”

Coun Lodge said: “Bristol is committed to building 1,000 new homes per year. The report says this council requires 900 over 900 homes per year but then you look at it and the business plan is to increase by 1,166 homes by year 2028/29.”

Pressures

Coun Nabeela Mowlana said that the HRA is being asked to do far more than it can with the financial pressures it faces.

“For 14 years this government has presided over a rapid decline in public house building and a rapid decline in our living standards,” she said.

“We need a national solution, a government that starts building again and empowered council housing to ensure council housing becomes the second largest form of housing in this country.”

She urged all parties to pull together to ensure that happens.

Coun Terry Fox of the Community Councillors Group said it cannot be right to accept that only 1,100 homes will be built.

He said that tenants in his Manor ward who had left the council to join registered social landlords (RSLs) tell “horror stories” of that decision and want to come back to the council.

He said Coun Lodge had mentioned Bristol “but I say to you, look Manchester, look at Newcastle, look at how they are borrowing to build homes in their city – council homes fit for purpose.

“We all go knocking on doors and we know the state of our neighbourhoods. If we all feel comfortable to sit on our laurels and vote for an unambitious plan, then more fool us.”