The impact of the 'Bedroom Tax'

I've done an interview for Spotlight and Radio Cornwall about the impact of the 'bedroom tax' here in Cornwall. About 40% of those hit by the change in the rules have gone into rent arrears since the change in the law.

The bedroom tax, or spare room subsidy - pick your own euphemism - is aimed at penalising those who claim housing benefit but live in a property which has more bedrooms than they need. So if you are a single person but live in a two bed flat and claim housing benefit then you are deemed to be under-occupying and you will be penalised 14% of your housing benefit.

This is all aimed at encouraging people to move to smaller properties and freeing up the larger homes for those families who need them - and there are many of these.

That's all very well in theory. But it relies on there being a good supply of smaller homes in the right areas. Here in Cornwall we don't have an endless supply of one and two bedroom homes and I don't think it is reasonable to expect someone to move from Launceston to Penzance in order to down-size.

There are also problems with disabled adaptations. People who have disabilities and have had their homes adapted to help them live independently would have to see their smaller properties adapted likewise. This often means ripping out one set of expensive adaptations and spending a lot of money and time re-fitting them elsewhere. The cost of doing so would usually massively exceed the money saved in downsizing. And there are some technical difficulties such as what constitutes a bedroom and who counts as a member of the household when it comes to evaluating the property size needed. 

There are 962 households who are Cornwall Council and Cornwall Housing tenants who are currently affected by the bedroom tax. At the end of May 2013, 370 additional households were in arrears (603 households in total but 233 were already in some arrears as at 01/04/13) the other 359 households were either up to date or had a credit balance. And these figures do not include any other Housing Association tenants across Cornwall who may also have been affected by this benefit change.

There is also the impact of other changes - such as cutting the top rate of council tax benefit - which are affecting many people in Cornwall.

What the council and others is committed to doing is to help anyone in rent arrears or other financial difficulty. We cannot afford to write-off money owed. But we can help to make sure that people are claiming all the benefits to which they are entitled and we can help residents organise their finances and budget properly. We can also try to help people move to smaller homes if they are available. The last thing we want to see is people losing their homes because of rent arrears. but the council can only help if we know someone is facing difficulties. If this affects you, please get in touch with your local One Stop Shop who can point you in the right direction.

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Has the Chancellor set up a subsidy scheme for second homes?

Has the Chancellor miscalculated with one of his personal schemes announced in yesterday's budget? George Osborne announced state funding for people who buy newly built houses - a measure that he said would stimulate the building industry as well as provide more homes.

But it seems that Mr Osborne has failed to include rules which would prevent these new houses being bought as second homes. In effect, we could be seeing a subsidy for people to buy second homes in Cornwall.

Liberal Democrats have worked hard in Cornwall to close the loopholes that give unfair advantages to second home owners. The council has ended the second home council tax discount and we want to make owners apply for change of use permission before they can turn a house into a second home. Liberal Democrats have made affordable homes for local people one of our top priorities. Cornwall cannot afford for Mr Osborne to undo all this hard work and so we need him to be clear that his new scheme will not subsidise second homes.

Yesterday's budget also had a number of good wins for the Liberal Democrats. Among them was the announcement that the income tax threshold would rise to £10,000 - and that this would happen a year ahead of schedule. That promise was on the front page of the Lib Dem manifesto at the last election and will mean that, from April next year, more than 2.6 million people won't be paying any income tax and millions more will have a £700 tax cut.

Other wins included the announcement on child care cost support to help more parents go out to work and which could be worth up to £1200. Also in the budget was the abolition of the beer duty escalator which saw tax go up by 2% more than inflation each year. And in addition there will be an extra penny off a pint. That's a win for Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland who has led the campaign to abolish it. It's also a win for local brewers like St Austell, Skinners and Sharps.

It would be a shame if all this good work was overwhelmed in the public mind by an ill-defined policy on new homes.

The Western Morning News has the story here.

UPDATE - ITN's Finance correspondent Laura Kuenssberg has tweeted: Lib dem source on Mortgage guarantee for second homes - 'we will not allow this to happen'

And World At One editor Nick Sutton tweets: Housing Minister Mark Prisk on #wato says purchasers would have to make a legal declaration they weren't buying second home.

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Cabinet backs 48,500 homes target

By four votes to three, Cornwall Council's new cabinet today backed the controversial 48,500 target for the number of new homes to be built in Cornwall over the next twenty years. This recommendation now moves to the full council as part of the draft local plan.

As I've blogged before, I'm not hung up about the numbers per se. But I want to see a greater emphasis on increasing the proportion of affordable homes - particularly social rented homes and new council housing - that are built as part of any new development. The new plan sets a target of just 30% for Launceston and many other towns and I feel that is too low.

I also spoke up for allowing local communities to do more to set their own targets for new development. So long as they can show how they can cope with the additional demands from those on the housing register and so on, I think that our starting point should be to let local communities decide. It appears that the Cabinet has moved towards this idea in Truro - altering the 'target' number downwards to meet the local figure. So why not elsewhere?

I got a comment from one Launceston resident who asks where the schools, medical facilities, jobs and other infrastructure will come from. I agree. I complained during today's meeting that this looks too much like a plan just for houses and that it doesn't address the other needs that communities have. Apparently that information is to come.

What Launceston has said is that we are prepared to have new housing, but only in places (mainly south and east of the Link Road) where they will not place undue demands on our road network and only if they are developed in conjunction with new employment opportunities and all the services and infrastructure that we also need. Thankfully, we got the reassurance from officers that our locally developed framework document would be given planning weight so that it will hold up against inappropriate proposals for development.

The full council debate will be very close.

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Cornwall's lower affordable homes target based on short-term thinking - UPDATED

Among all the other big decisions being taken by Cornwall Council at the moment, the issue of the new local plan (previously known as the core strategy) is one of the biggest. It is being discussed by the Cabinet next Wednesday and will be decided by all 123 councillors at the December council meeting.

The headlines will focus on the 49,000 target for the number of new homes being proposed for Cornwall over the 20 year lifetime of the plan.

One way in which this number could be brought down is through a better target for the proportion of affordable housing being provided by developers. With more than 25,000 families on the housing register, we need every one that we can get. (We should also be making better use of our powers to encourage empty homes to be brought back into use.)

The current local plan proposal is for a mere 30% affordable housing target for Launceston and most of Cornwall. This is a huge drop from the previously agreed figure of 50%. I have questioned this and been told that it is based on what we can expect to get in the current property market. To my mind that's appallingly short-term thinking. Although the property market is currently very depressed and we might have to accept 30%, no one seriously thinks that the market will not recover and we should be setting the figure for the good times (knowing we can offer accept lower) rather than the bad (as there is no provision for an increase).

I'll blog later about a couple of other key failings I think exist in the draft plan.

UPDATE - I've had it clarified that the affordable housing percentages can be altered as a result of changes in the economy and that the plan as a whole can be reviewed on a five yearly basis. Obviously that's a relief of sorts, but I remain convinced that we are planning on the basis of bad times rather than setting more ambitious targets and being prepared to compromise.

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Mains gas coming to Ridgegrove and Lanstephan estates

Work begins next week on bringing mains gas to the Ridgegrove and Lanstephan estates in Launceston. This is great news and will mean lower heating bills (and better quality heating) for people living on these estates.

The work will take up to six months as a gas main has to be laid down each street. In Ridgegrove it's not that easy as many of the homes can only be accessed from footpaths and the steep slopes will mean lots of digging.

Inevitably there will be a fair amount of disruption with a rolling programme of street works. Some of the footpaths may have to be closed for a short while. Please be patient with the contractors who have promised to keep residents informed about progress and to keep disruption to a minimum.

All Cornwall Housing and other housing association homes will be connected to the new mains automatically.  But as the contractors are going to be on site, a special deal has been arranged for private homeowners to get connected too. This service - the connection from the mains to your house and the fitting of a meter - will cost £200 plus VAT for the period of the site works. If you want to know more, pop along to the exhibition in the town hall today or talk to the contractors when they come on site.

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Plans for social cleansing of richer areas will be resisted say Lib Dems

A think tank closely aligned to the Conservative Party has today produced a report which could see some of the most expensive parts of Cornwall 'cleansed' of social housing.

The Policy Exchange report, which has been enthusiastically endorsed by Housing Minister Grant Shapps, recommends that, when social housing in an expensive area becomes vacant then it should be sold off and the money used to buy or build social housing in cheaper places. Note that 'becoming vacant' often means the tenant dying even if they still have family who live in the home.

The biggest problem with this plan is that it will lead to many towns and villages - particularly coastal communities - becoming completely free of social housing. Low income families from the area will lose any chance they had of getting a home in the village, even if they have lived there all their lives, and will be forced to move elsewhere. In many cases, the property will simply become yet another second home.

Instead, we should be looking at genuinely mixed communities in all parts of Cornwall. Nowhere should become a social housing ghetto and nowhere should be cleansed of all social housing.

Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives and West Cornwall said this on the plans:

“If they really want to ‘socially cleanse’ our villages of local families who are most in need of affordable housing then they’ll have a fight on their hands."

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Cameron seeks to condemn young people to homelessness and sofa-surfing

Last week I posted about the work being done by foyer projects across Cornwall to help homeless young people. These housing schemes don't just put a roof over the heads of people who would otherwise be on the streets or sofa-surfing, they also help them find training or jobs and prepare them to live independently.

According to the reports over the weekend, Prime Minister David Cameron is now saying that he wants a future Conservative government to abolish housing benefit for under 25s.

The question is therefore... what will happen to young people like those we met last week? 

These are not young people for whom staying at home with their parents is an option. In the main they have troubled pasts and have been kicked out of home or left because of family breakdown. As I posted last week, the delays in processing housing benefits and the single room rate restriction can make it very difficult for young people to get into housing. Losing all access to housing benefit would make it next to impossible.

And what about those young people who get on their bikes and leave home to find work but lose their job or are in work that doesn't pay enough to cover all their out-goings? If they lose their housing benefits then they will be punished for trying to make it on their own.

Cameron has been very clear that these are ideas for a future Tory government because he knows that there is no way that the Liberal Democrats in coalition would agree to such measures. It's proof of how much different a Tory only administration would be.

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Excellent work of foyer projects stymied by council inefficiencies - UPDATED

Part of the unheralded work of councillors is to see how the services we run affect the lives of ordinary people - particularly the most vulnerable people in our society. Yesterday members of the Communities scrutiny committee visited the Bodmin Foyer project to talk to staff and residents there.

Like other foyers across Cornwall (including the one in Launceston), the Bodmin project takes young people aged 16-25 who are homeless and gives them a roof over their head. They then work with the residents to help them get training or a job and to learn to live independently.

We heard from Mark*, one of the residents, who had been through years of sofa surfing and being in and out of work. He has been helped hugely by the foyer to the extent that he is now in training, is learning to balance his household budgets and has realistic aims and ambitions for his future.

But not everything is running smoothly for the Foyer. They currently have a waiting list of 35 people and at least six of their residents are ready to move out. They included Hazel* who has been living in the Foyer system for almost a year and is keen and able to live independently. The trouble is that it is incredibly difficult for them to find the next place to live. Private landlords are reluctant to take them on given the limit of £70 per week they can claim in housing benefit. And Cornwall Council is so slow in processing benefit applications that many landlords are not prepared to wait the three months it often takes to get any rent.

In addition, the cuts last year in supporting people budgets means that the peripatetic youth workers who used to be available to provide occasional help to young people who had been through the system have gone. In the past, landlords had someone to turn to if young people were facing difficulties. Now they haven't and landlords are often not willing to take the risk.

Whilst Cornwall Council cannot change the single room restriction in housing benefit levels, we need to cut the huge delay in processing housing benefit claims and to consider how we can support young people and landlords so that it becomes easier to move on from the foyer projects.

UPDATE -

It's fair to say that Cornwall Council are making significant improvements in some areas of housing. Cabinet member Mark Kaczmarek has asked me to mention the Stepping Stones project which was launched earlier this week to encourage more private landlords to work with Cornwall Housing to provide good quality homes to some of the families on the Cornwall Homechoice register. I'm happy to help publicise this initiative.

With more than 24,000 applicants on Homechoice and others seeking advice through the housing options service, housing need in Cornwall is high. The Stepping Stones to Homes scheme will work with private landlords with the aim of increasing access to private rented accommodation by giving landlords the confidence that they will receive support from a dedicated housing officer should they encounter issues with a tenant referred by Cornwall Housing.

Mark Kaczmarek, Cornwall Council cabinet member for housing and planning says: “Through Stepping Stones to Homes, Cornwall Housing will offer both private landlords and tenants the assurances and help they need to be able to enjoy a good and long lasting relationship.  We want to get away from the ‘revolving door’ which sees tenants who, for whatever reason, take on a tenancy only for the relationship with the landlord to break down and for the person to be back in the system and in need of emergency advice or accommodation.

We still have too many households in bed and breakfast and other emergency accommodation. It is in the best interests of all concerned to find a better way to help those most in housing need to find a stable and long term home. Housing need in Cornwall is great with over 24,000 applicants on the Homechoice register. We are not going to be able to offer homes to all of those people through social housing. We need private landlords to come forward and offer good quality homes and the Council will do all it can to help them and their tenants.” 

Stepping Stones to Homes provides a Cornwall Housing managed link between prospective tenants, referred by Cornwall Housing, and private landlords. The properties of landlords who sign up to the Stepping Stones to Homes scheme will be inspected by Cornwall Housing’s Private Sector Housing teams to make sure they meet agreed standards. A Landlord Code and a Tenant Code will be set up to ensure that each is aware of their respective responsibilities. 

Stepping Stones to Homes offer:

•       One contact point at Cornwall Housing for both landlord and tenant

•       A hot line to a trouble-shooter at Cornwall Housing for landlords, to quickly deal with any issues

•       A guaranteed deposit Bond for landlords to the value of two months rent

•       Fast payment of claims against the deposit – usually within 7 working days

•       Rent in advance payment

•       Fast tracked Housing Benefit claims

•       Housing Benefit will be paid direct to the landlord for the first 6 month of the tenancy

•       Landlord code to set out the expectations that Cornwall Housing, tenants and other landlords have of anyone signing up to the scheme. 

•       Tenant code so that tenants understand their responsibilities, including the need to take care of the property

•       Accreditation scheme which make sure that all properties are inspected and meet an agreed set of standards

•       Guaranteed payment of up to 2 weeks rent to give time for an alternative and suitable tenant to be found if a property on the scheme becomes vacant

•       A full inventory of the property

•       Liaison between tenant, landlord and Cornwall Housing if a tenant decides to leave a property and the opportunity to re-let via the Stepping Stones to Homes scheme
*The names of the residents have been changed

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Cabinet minds are closed on 'right to buy' debate

It seems that ordinary Cornwall Council members are being ignored once again as the leadership bunker avoids any attempt at consultation over a significant issue of concern to lots of residents.

The issue this time is council housing and the Government's proposed new 'right to buy' legislation. There are some pretty strong views both for an against this proposal - as demonstrated by my debate with Sarah Newton MP on the local Daily Politics show a couple of weeks ago. But all these were ignored as the council chose to send in a technocratic response and merely copied it to councillors for information.

With the current 'Leader and Cabinet' system of governance, the final decision on what the council's response should be was always going to be restricted to just the executive. But on an issue as important as this, it would have been appropriate to allow a discussion in full council next week on the issue and to incorporate some of the views of members in the response. My Lib Dem colleagues Geoff Brown and Nigel Pearce have proposed a motion for debate anyway and I hope that it elicits a range of views.

Alternatively, Cllr Kaczmarek could have presented a draft response to last week's meeting of the Communities scrutiny committee - which oversees housing. But, despite having a number of important debates on the agenda, the right to buy wasn't one of them and Cllr Kaczmarek decided that another engagement was more pressing than explaining his thoughts on these policy matters.

What annoys me the most is that I know Cllr Kaczmarek has strong views on the issue of the right to buy. One of the key issues is the likely diminution of the council housing stock. With 23,000 families on the housing list, I would think Cornwall's first priority should be finding a roof for these people, not selling off the houses we have. There are claims that the authority could replace every house sold, but I know Cllr Kaczmarek doesn't think this is possible. There is also concern about where replacement houses would be (selling a house in Bude and replacing it in Penzance doesn't really help Bude).

I hope that the Council Chairman allows a debate on this motion next Tuesday. I'd welcome the chance to hear from those who take a different stance from myself. Unfortunately, for the cabinet, it seems that their minds are closed.

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Cornwall Council - giving away the farm

Cornwall Council's strategic planning committee today voted to approve the Truro 'Eastern District Centre' application for a Waitrose Supermarket, Cornwall Food Centre, Eastern Park and Ride, Waste Recycling Centre and housing.

I don't sit of this committee and didn't attend the meeting and so will not disagree with the overall 11-8 vote in favour of the application.

But I am particularly disappointed with one aspect of the outcome. This was a green field application to be built on land outside the Truro development boundary. As such, the policy agreed by the Cabinet is that every single one of the houses should be an affordable home - 100%. What percentage has been agreed - 35% We are, quite literally, giving away the farm.

Cornwall Council faces a housing waiting list of 23,000 families. We need to take urgent action to get this number down. But we do ourselves no favours if we allow developers who can afford more to get away with giving only around a third of the homes they are building to local families on the housing waiting list. It means we will have to build more and more houses for incomers to get the affordable homes we need.

I have always argued that the proposals of the core strategy for new homes in Cornwall of 48,000 or more is wrong. I've said that we can get this number down by enforcing the higher levels of affordable housing that the Cabinet agreed two years ago. Yet again, it would seem that the council has let developers get away with murder.

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Investing in more council housing in Cornwall

At yesterday's scrutiny meeting we discussed the shortage of council housing in Cornwall. There are more than 23,000 people on the housing waiting list, of whom 430 have a local connection with Launceston.

The changes to the way council rents are collected means that Cornwall Council has a lot more control over the system. We also have the ability to borrow more money and, because of the low rate of interest that the council pays, it makes sense to borrow almost up to the limit and invest this money into our current housing stock and new building.

That's why the cabinet member has today announced a new strategy for investment in housing in Cornwall and it's very welcome - at least in concept. What we need to do now is to understand better what it will mean in detail.

One of the key concerns will be the balance of investment in making the existing houses better compared with building new properties. Many of our council houses need work on double glazing, out of date kitchens and bathrooms and providing modern heating systems. What should be the relative priorities for this work compared with getting people off the waiting list and into a home for the first time?

The second issue is the type of new properties that can be built. All too often the new social rented homes are one and two bedroom flats and houses. Whilst these would satisfy most demand, there is a stand out need for larger houses. There are currently 24 families with a connection to Launceston waiting for a four or five bedroom property and only nine 4 bedroom properties available in our town, all of which are currently occupied. Other providers are especially unwilling to build these larger social rented houses and so the burden will fall on the council to make sure they are available.

But the council will only ever be able to build a small proportion of new social rented houses. Most will come from housing developers and the level of affordable housing they are required to build as part of the deal for their planning permission. Cornwall Council is meant to be moving towards a requirement for 50% of all new houses being affordable across most of Cornwall and 40% in the biggest towns. But developers are not even being asked for this level at the moment and the new strategy talks about achieving roughly 20%. I think the Council needs to get tough with developers to make sure that they contribute their fair share to reducing Cornwall's housing waiting list.

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How many new homes does Cornwall need?

Perhaps the most important single document of Cornwall Council's four year term is currently out for public consultation. The Core Strategy will guide development across Cornwall for the next 20 years.

At the heart of the document is the question of the level of growth and how the new homes should be distributed across the Duchy.

The major constraint is the National Planning Policy Framework. This is the government document that dictates that there should be a certain level of growth across the UK. This in turn means that Cornwall Council's subsidiary document must also propose some growth. But how much do we want?

I'll put my cards on the table. I'm in favour of growth - but only growth for a purpose. With around 31,000 people on the housing waiting list, we need to provide more affordable homes in all parts of Cornwall. But we need to be smarter than we have been in the past about the size of these properties and where they are built. In particular, we need more larger properties for the social rented sector. I understand that there is just one five bedroom house in Launceston, for example, despite there being at least six local families who need that size of property (and many more from across Cornwall).

We also need to make sure that there are affordable homes built in some of the villages. We cannot rely on new homes in order to make local facilities sustainable. But we can be certain that, without new families moving into our villages, local shops and pubs and schools will continue to struggle and close.

And the type of properties being built needs to be looked at too. Recently, social housing - in fact almost all new developments - have been boxy little houses and flats on the outskirts of town. Often with no facilities or bus connections, these can become cut off commuter villages. We need to make sure that when there is new development it comes equipped with all the local facilities to make the new householders part of a thriving community.

Part of the urge to approve lots of new homes - and supermarkets - is that the council can get planning gain from the developers. Technically known as section 106, these are developer contributions to local facilities and projects. In theory, these are meant only to offset the additional burdens on the local community caused by the development. But in practice, there has been more and more reliance on s106 to provide the basic infrastructure including schools and replacements for tired old leisure centres and community buildings. Developers, naturally, don't like paying for anything that puts a dent in their profits, but I think that the council has a duty to try to extract as much community benefit as possible from any development. In particular, because the more we get from one developer, the less we feel the need to approve the next one unless it is right for the local area.

And just as we should ensure we get the most bang for our buck in terms of s106, so councillors need to get as much affordable housing as possible. The official policy of the council is to get 50% affordable housing in developments of 2 or more houses across most built up areas. In some of the largest towns and in Truro, this is relaxed to 40% of developments of 5 or more. And there is further detail about the mix of affordable housing that should be delivered.

So far, so good.

But very often developers will complain that they cannot afford to build if the affordable housing level is put so high. The so-called viability test is used to try to get permission with a lower number for affordable homes. In general, I don't buy this. Although we need social housing, it should not come at any cost. The idea that, say, 15% of something is better than 50% of nothing has been accepted far too often. A green field can only be built on once and we should hold out a bit more for the full allocation. If some developments don't go ahead as a result then that is not the end of the world.

So whilst we need growth in order to provide affordable housing and community infrastructure, getting the right level of developer contribution for each development should mean that we can limit the number of new houses and the number of new supermarkets being built.

So how many houses should be built?

The figure being proposed in the core strategy contribution is 48,000 new homes over the next 20 years. As various people have noted, this is likely to take Cornwall on the path towards a population of more than a million by the end of this century. True, not many of us will be around to see that milestone surpassed. But even so, the development on the way will put a huge strain on roads, railways, schools and all the other bits of infrastructure in Cornwall. Not to mention the loss of lots of green space.

Some have suggested that this figure is too low and should be 52,000 or 57,000 or 60,000 or more. In the very unlikely event that Cornwall suddenly needs more houses during the course of the 20 years then the core strategy is not a barrier. The rules state that the proposed number of new houses can be increased but cannot be cut.

Personally, I think that the balance of the need for new affordable homes set against the fear of concreting over Cornwall leads to a total of around 32,000 to 38,000. But the bare figure is not the end of the story. Each community should be asked to consider how many homes it can accommodate and where they should go. In part, this will come as part of the new neighbourhood planning function of the Localism Act. But Cornwall Council should resist the urge to meddle and impose unrealistically high figures on each and every community.

If you want to have your say on the core strategy - whether you agree with my view or not - you can do so online here.

For more coverage of this debate, Cornish Zetetics posts regular opinions.

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Lib Dems propose low interest repair loans to keep vulnerable families in their homes

Next Tuesday sees another regular full council meeting - the time when all 123 members get together to discuss key issues of policy and budget. It's the time when we have the chance to quiz all the cabinet members as well as to put forward ideas about how to make life better for local residents.

For next week's meeting, the Liberal Democrats are putting forward a motion in favour of a low interest loan scheme for householders who are on a low income and facing large bills for repairing their home.

It's always better for people to be kept in their homes rather than moving into social housing. Not only is it cheaper for the council, but it is less disruptive for families and it doesn't deprive another family on the waiting list of their place in the queue.

But there are some families on low incomes who are facing huge bills for repairing their homes - perhaps for a new roof or to deal with dry rot. If they cannot afford to pay for the work then they are at risk of becoming a burden on the council. Introducing a low interest loan scheme will help them to afford the repairs and to keep them in their home.

Such a scheme could be introduced without costing council taxpayers anything - the loans would be low interest, but still enough to cover the cost to the council of borrowing. In addition, they would require a charge against the property - like a mortgage - so that in the even of a default the council would get its money back.

I hope that this scheme will be seen by all councillors as a good way to save money for the authority and to keep families in their homes.

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Council taking action on illicit sub-letting

There was a bit of national coverage earlier this week as the Government announced that they were considering making it illegal to sub-let a council house. The argument goes that this activity makes it more difficult for those on the housing register to get a property.

I've been chasing up to find out what Cornwall Council does to ensure that this isn't a problem here. Today we got a lot of information from Jane Barlow, the Head of Housing, to whom I'm very grateful.

Cornwall Council says that the last time they had a case of sub-letting was more than 10 years ago and they believe that they have a good network of housing officers as well as lots of inquiries from other tenants so they do not believe they have a problem. I think this attitude is a little complacent but was gratified to find that the authority also co-ordinates with applications for housing benefit and with other databases to keep tabs to ensure that illicit sub-letting doesn't happen.

There are thousands of people in Cornwall on the register waiting for social housing. In many cases they are desperate for new homes. I'm grateful that the council is taking action to ensure that these families are not being held up by illicit sub-letting.

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Disabled Facilities Grants - long, slow progress

The huge delay in providing adaptations to enable people to carry on living in their own homes was under discussion at the Communities Scrutiny meeting today. The delays are such that some people die before the changes are made to their home.

It's not a simple issue and it has been a problem for Cornwall Council and its predecessors for many years. Over the past year performance has improved, but it's hard to see the amount of need disappearing any time in the near future.

To give you an idea of waiting times, the time taken simply to get an assessment has been cut from 118 working days to 60 working days - but that is still three months. Once the assessment has been done, the works themselves can take up to 310 working days on average to complete. That's the figure for the biggest jobs. The waiting time for the smallest jobs still averaged 160 working days.

As I said, the performance recently has improved and this could be something to do with more money being put into the service. This year the total budget is about £6.5 million compared with about £4.2 million previously.

But the amount of money due to be spent in the future is still under review. The service says it has an agreement to spend up to £10 million over the next three years and hopes to make a further £6 million of efficiency savings. But averaged over the three years, this is actually a cut. That's why I proposed a recommendation to the Cabinet asking for a minimum budget for each of the next three years equivalent to the current year's spend. Unfortunately this proposal was defeated by a single vote and a more watered down recommendation asking for 'enough money to be spent to meet need' was agreed instead.

This is an area which should be a priority for our council. If there continues to be a backlog and people are dying or being forced to move out of their home before the work is done then we will have failed.

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Lib Dems scrap 'tenant tax'

Liberal Democrat ministers have today announced a major change to the way that the Government treats rents paid by people who live in council houses - including many thousands of residents in North Cornwall.

Lib Dems have long campaigned to reform the Housing Revenue Account subsidy and replace it with a fairer system. We’ve now been able to deliver on that pledge in government.

The unpopular 'Tenant Tax' will be scrapped, with local authorities being allowed to keep all council house rents and sales receipts they collect to reinvest in social housing, under plans announced today by the coalition government.

The proposal, which sees the coalition delivering on a major Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment, will result in the Housing Revenue Account subsidy being scrapped in favour of greater financial freedom for councils. Under the previous system, all council tenant rent was paid into a local housing pot, from which the government retained some of the money centrally.

The new proposals will see this Housing Revenue Account subsidy scrapped. Instead councils will be able to retain all of the money from rents and sales receipts to invest in the repair, maintenance and construction of social housing in their area.

Full details of the new system will be announced as part of the Spending Review on 20 October and will be introduced as part of the Localism Bill this autumn.

This is great news for residents of Ridgegrove, Trecarrell, Hurdon Way and Lanstephan in Launceston as well as other council tenants across Cornwall. It means that Cornwall Council will have more cash to spend on making sure their houses and community facilities are really up to scratch.

Council agrees to real consultation over empty homes strategy

Cornwall Council has seen sense and has decided to extend the consultation period for its new empty homes strategy. The Council had previously allowed just three weeks for town and parish councils and anyone else who is interested to have their say.

For towns and parishes, this is just too short a time. Most only have meetings on a monthly basis and so a three week consultation often denies them the chance to discuss the issue and have their say. On this issue, Cornwall Council is looking to involve the local councils in finding empty properties and so the short consultation period was not the best way to boost their working relationships.

I raised the issue with officers and was told that they wanted to get the strategy in place as soon as possible because housing was an issue at the top of their list. I told them that a poor consultation raised the possibility of a poor policy and that a short amount of extra time now would pay dividends in the future. Cabinet Member Mark Kaczmarek told me he had yet to come across anyone who had a problem with the strategy and so it should just go ahead. To me that smacks of not understanding the point of consultation.

However, the Council has now emailed to say that the consultation will be extended to August 2nd and so all town and parish councils - as well as many other interested parties - will be able to contribute. I'm very grateful to the Council for seeing sense on this issue and have offered to work with the communications team to help set up a formal consultation policy so that this sort of exclusion won't happen again.

If you want to have your say on the empty property strategy, go to the consultation paper here.

Hooray for common sense - UPDATED

My colleague Mario Fonk has proposed a motion for Full Council on Tuesday about the new Homechoice system. The issue is that the current rules mean that local applicants have no precedence in the allocation of council housing and sometimes people are forced to move to the other end of Cornwall to get a home, even if they want to stay where they were born and grew up.

But the controversy over this motion is that the rules state that such proposals are not debated and voted on by all councillors at the council meeting. Motions are referred automatically by the Chairman to a committee or to the Cabinet. This adds delay and means that many councillors are not able to speak on the issue. Only the proposer and seconder have a formal right to speak at these committees.

Such was the ruling on Mario's motion. I, and many other councillors, have expressed dismay at the emasculation of the full council. We have the so-called 'strong leader' model where the Cabinet has the real power. But it seems wrong that full council is not even allowed to express a view. Since the Council started last year, only one members motion has been debated.

A number of us wrote to the Chairman asking her to reconsider in this case. I believe that full council should be a forum for debate. We might not be able to do anything about the ultimate decision making power, but we should be able to have our say and make a recommendation to the Cabinet.

Thankfully, and to her credit, the Chairman has seen fit to reconsider and the motion will now be debated at Full Council.

UPDATE - The motion was passed by Full Council earlier this afternoon by 50 votes to 32 with 19 abstentions (which includes the entire cabinet as they will have to vote on the issue in the future). It will now inform the new Homechoice policy. Congratulations to Mario for getting this through.

Cornwall's eco-town

There was a briefing this afternoon for councillors to learn more about the proposed eco-town for the clay area of mid Cornwall.

My concerns about the project are less to do with the redevelopment of derelict clay pits or about the new housing, but about how to make sure that the new communities can function properly and that people at the other end of the Duchy - including those of us here in Launceston - neither have to pay for the development nor will lose out on badly needed regeneration money because it is sucked into the eco-town project.

I am happy in principle that the eco-town (actually it won't be a single town but a series of smaller communities across the vast clay area) is a good way of redeveloping the area. China Clay produced (and still produces) a good income and lots of jobs for mid Cornwall. But many of the pits have reached the end of their useful life and it is right that we look for appropriate ways to redevelop them. The Eden Project is a great example of what can be done, but we shouldn't be looking for endless copycats. They simply won't work.

But, just as the Olympic Games have sucked National Lottery money and regeneration funds away from the rest of the UK into East London (much of the rest of London has also missed out), I am concerned that the rest of us will see all of Cornwall's regeneration monies be sent towards St Austell. I received reassurances on this from the officers today in that only the convergence funding earmarked for mid Cornwall will be used for the eco-town and other convergence monies will be left untouched. But I am still worried that external grants will be refused to good projects in Cornwall on the basis that we already have got more than our fair share and it is all going to this one project. That's not a reason on its own to reject the eco-town, but it does mean that we have to be on our guard.

The second worry is about how the complete development will be paid for. Of course, any developer will pay for the houses themselves. But in Cornwall we have been traditionally very bad about getting the funds for the community infrastructure - the schools, doctors surgeries, roads, drains, community halls, play areas and so forth. If the developer doesn't pay for these then Cornish taxpayers have to. These are not 'planning gain'. They are the basic needs of the new community and it should be the developer of this site who foots the bill. Otherwise the costs will fall to council taxpayers in the rest of Cornwall. When Launceston has missed out on regeneration funding and council projects for many years and urgently needs funds spent on our own infrastructure, it seems entirely wrong that our money should be spent elsewhere.

Again, although it is still an issue we need to keep a careful eye on, I am happy as a result of this briefing that we have a group of officers who, in this case, understand the need to make the development 'wash its own face' and, they say, a developer who wants to outline the community infrastructure they will put in place before they start building the houses.

Earlier I mentioned 'planning gain'. This is the benefit to the neighbouring communities that a council is able to get from large scale developers via what are known as Section 106 agreements. These should be real, concrete benefits to the rest of the clay country (and possibly to Cornwall as a whole). When we are looking at a £1bn project, these can be quite substantial and I emphasised to the officers and members the need to take this issue seriously.

The eco-town project still has the potential to swallow up funding and attention for many years to come but, as a result of the briefing and chatting to officers and members today, I'm less concerned that the project will be to the detriment of communities such as Launceston.

Former Truro and St Austell MP Matthew Taylor has been announced as the chair of the eco-town project. I think he is a superb champion for the area and I will be looking to him (as well as Cornwall Council) to make sure that the eco-town project is the success that its proponents claim it will be.

Labour's over-commitment to cost Cornwall dear?

It appears likely that the lavish promises made during the death throes of the Labour Government my well cost Cornwall dear. According to news reports, it is likely that the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme - under which Cornwall was due to get enough money to completely refurbish 6 secondary schools - is to be cut. These six schools were simply the first tranche of a much wider school refurbishment programme.

Also at risk is Cornwall Council's cornerstone policy of a PFI scheme to build affordable housing.

It is usually a rule of new Governments that they do not renege on spending commitments that have been made by their predecessor. So that should make the BSF programme safe. Except that the new Government have found that Labour promised money that it did not have. As there was no money there to be promised, ministers have decided that the promise was not valid in the first place. Effectively, they are saying that Labour lied about having the money.

The new Government has, however, made a pledge to introduce the Lib Dem scheme of a pupil premium - an extra payment for pupils who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Under this scheme, Cornwall is set to gain up to £22 million. That money would go directly to schools and it would be up to headteachers to decide how it could best be used to help pupils - whether by reducing class sizes, introducing Saturday schools or catch-up classes or even by using the money on school improvements. This money is not a replacement for the BSF funding, however. Clearly there will need to be a lot of lobbying by the Council of the new ministers.

Looking further than BSF, another Cornwall scheme that may be at risk is the Affordable Housing PFI bid. There are ten councils across the UK who are together bidding for £1 billion of PFI credits. As these bids have not yet been approved, it may seem that they would be obvious candidates for the chop. At a stroke the new Government would find £1bn of the £6bn savings it is looking to make. But there may still be hope for the scheme. As it is spread over a number of years, it may be that Treasury rules do not allow the whole saving to be written up in year one. In addition, the whole concept of PFI was first adopted by government because the money spent was off the government books. And so cutting the credits might not save the Government any money at all.

We will have to wait and see what Chancellor Osborne has to say on Monday.