Bracknell

Bracknell Tenants could be asked to vote next March on whether to transfer the borough's housing stock to a new, Bracknell Forest-based housing association to be run by local tenants, councillors and independent members.

Bracknell Councillors will consider the recommendation at a meeting of the Executive on June 20, after receiving both the results of a recent tenants’ survey and the recommendation of the Housing Steering Group.

The work by the Housing Steering Group - an independently chaired group made up of tenants, leaseholders, councillors, council staff and trade union representatives - found tenants should be given the opportunity to vote on the issue. The group carried out extensive research and visited housing associations where homes had been transferred.

A survey carried out in April found that less than half of all tenants who responded (49%) now want their homes to stay with Bracknell Forest Borough Council.

Furthermore, those tenants who had received more detailed information and personal contact through home visits and roadshows actually favoured a move to a new, local housing association, specially set up to manage Bracknell borough's homes.

A transfer to a housing association would have major financial and community benefits for tenants and leaseholders.

Currently £9million of the rent paid by tenants each year (half of all rent money) has to be paid back to the Government to be spent in areas of the country considered more in need.

A local housing association would not be bound by the same rules as the Council and would be able to keep this £9million each year to spend on improvements to homes in Bracknell Forest.

All Council and housing association homes across the country have to be brought up to the Decent Homes Standard by 2010. This is a basic standard of repair and improvement defined by the Government.

A new appraisal of the cost of reaching the Decent Homes Standard has found Bracknell Council now falls £15million short of being able to meet it. However, a local housing association would be able to meet this standard and more, delivering the improvements tenants have said they want.

A new, locally based housing association would also take across council staff, so tenants would still be looked after by the same people.

Timothy Wheadon, Chief Executive of Bracknell Forest Borough Council, said: "Given the financial restraints the Council is under, I will be recommending to the Council's Executive that a ballot of all tenants is held in March 2007 to decide whether housing should be transferred to a new Bracknell-Forest based housing association.

"Tenants and leaseholders interests have been at the heart of our thinking during the consultations that have taken place to date and we have looked in detail at the benefits of all options for how Council housing could be owned and managed in the future to give them the best possible service.

"The work we have done with tenants so far shows that the more they know about the financial restraints of staying with the Council, the more they favour transferring to a new local housing association."

The leader of the Council, Bracknell Cllr Paul Bettison, added: "We will be moving this recommendation at the Executive meeting, on the basis of the feedback we received from both the Housing Steering Group, which has asked the Council to hold a ballot, and tenants and leaseholders themselves.

"We are committed to ensuring our tenants and leaseholders get the best possible landlord to take care of their homes in a safe and secure way long into the future, free of the vagaries of the effects of Government funding.

"We feel a newly formed, locally based housing association with tenants, councillors and independent members on the board will give them that security."

The Executive will refer the recommendation about whether to apply for Government backing for the stock transfer to a meeting of full Council on July 12.

Cllr Anne Shillcock, the leader of the Labour opposition group in Bracknell Council, said she was also supporting the recommendation.

"The feedback we received from the detailed consultation carried out so far suggests tenants should now be given the opportunity to vote on whether to transfer to a new, Bracknell Forest-based housing association," Cllr Shillcock said.

If a transfer did go ahead, the new housing association would pay Bracknell Council an estimated £37million for the housing. Most of this money would then be spent on new affordable housing in the borough to house some of the 4,000 people on the Council's housing waiting list.

Some of the funds could also be invested in housing-related community projects such as youth initiatives, parking or environmental schemes on estates.

Bracknell Forest Borough Council