Agenda item

The Leader thanked Shirley Cupit, Chair of Defend Council Homes Unit (DCHU), for all her hard work done on the Defend Council Homes Policy. He stressed that this policy represented a major landmark in delivering the Council’s commitment to protect Council homes now and in the future.  He added that this Administration had also saved the West Kensington and Gibbs Green Estates from demolition.

Councillor Lisa Homan stated that the Council had been through a number of stages and process to get to this stage. In 2017 the Council set up the Defend Council Homes Unit to look at new ways of safeguarding the homes of council tenants and leaseholders, chaired by Shirley Cupit, a resident whose home had been at risk of demolition. This policy had been through a very robust consultation with residents. She thanked Shirley Cupit and all residents involved in creating this policy and highly recommended it for Cabinet approval.

Shirley Cupit, Chair of DCHU, stated that this policy would give a legal protection to residents and the opportunity to have a saying on decisions that would affect their homes. She added that this policy was not anti-development but against the non-involvement of residents on these decisions. The consultation had received over 1,000 individual responses from residents – and impressive result considering it had been carried out in the middle of a pandemic. The responses had been overwhelmingly in favour of the policy: 92% of respondents supported its introduction. She added that this policy showed how this Council genuinely wanted to listen to its residents and she wholeheartedly recommended it for Cabinet approval.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY BY CABINET:

That Cabinet:

1)    Carefully considers all responses to the section 105 consultation on the Defend Council Homes Policy and notes the significant level of support for the Policy from residents living in Council homes. 

2)    Agrees that the Defend Council Homes Policy, attached as Appendix 1, be formally adopted as a policy of the Council and that all necessary steps, including but not limited to entering into any necessary documents , be taken to implement the policy.

3)    Authorises the Head of Law to register a restriction on title with HM Land Registry of all freehold  titles within the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) as follows:  “No disposition of the registered estate by the proprietor of the registered estate is to be registered without a certificate signed by Hammersmith and Fulham Council [or their conveyancer] that the provisions of the Defend Council Homes Policy (in the terms in effect as at the date of certificate) have been complied with or that they do not apply to the disposition”.

4)    Approves that the one-off costs of implementation of up to £140,000 are funded from:

a.    the current balance of £46,700 held in the earmarked reserve for “Protecting the future of Council homes”;

b.    existing revenue budgets of £93,300 within the Place division of the Housing Revenue Account.

5)    Agrees the timetable for implementation set out in the next steps and timeline section.