In this program we take a look at the highlights of the July night sky. Our main theme is the Sun in action, and NASA's new spacecraft IRIS which will launch on Thursday to study the sun's atmosphere in fine detail.
The next edition of the BBC Sky at Night program will be around midnight on 7th July when the team will be looking at The Moon.
The plans, announced by The Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander today and published in Investing in Britain’s Future, set out more detail on how £3.3bn of investment will deliver 165,000 new affordable homes by 2017/18.
The announcement included:
• An extension of the Affordable Homes Programme with £957m funding each year from 2015/16 to 2017/18, and a £400m Affordable Rent to Buy scheme, to deliver 165,000 new affordable homes.
• Certainty that the guideline limit for social rent increases has been set at CPI + 1% per year from 2015-16 to 2024-25.
• A review of the Government estate to be led by the Government Property Unit and a role for the HCA as the single public body charged with bringing surplus public land to market from 2015/16 onwards.
• An additional £150m funding for Enterprise Zones and an additional £102m to speed up delivery on large scale sites.
•£160m to reduce the backlog of non-decent homes, bringing the Decent Homes Backlog Programme to an end.
• Allowing the HCA to charge fees for the regulation of social housing providers.
Many of the programmes announced today will be administered by the HCA outside London, on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Andy Rose, Chief Executive of the HCA, said:
“This is a strong settlement for the sector. The commitment of £3.3bn for affordable housing to build 165,000 new affordable homes reflects the Government’s confidence in the sector and the HCA; as well as housing’s role in driving economic growth. This is core business for us and we are ready to work with our partners to deliver these new homes. This includes our role as regulator to ensure providers have appropriate management strategies to take advantage of the new opportunities.
“The announcement that the HCA will be the single public body charged with bringing surplus public sector land to market builds on the HCA’s role as the Government’s key delivery partner in increasing the amount of public land for development and speeding up the rate at which it is brought to market. It clearly recognises our commercial expertise, experience of managing large portfolios of land, and delivery performance to date in contributing to the Prime Minister’s ambition to release enough land by 2015 to support development of 100,000 new homes.
“There are significant opportunities in today’s announcement for house builders and providers to meet their development aspirations. Our role now is to maximise the impact of the investment that has been made available and we will be talking to the sector about implementation, to take advantage of these opportunities.”
Hello and welcome to The Time the Place. In the next TV video program we take a look at the highlights of the July night sky.
Our main theme is the Sun in action, and NASA’s new spacecraft IRIS which will launch on Thursday to study the sun’s atmosphere in fine detail. We also take a look at the launch of Shenzhou-10, China's fifth-ever manned mission to successfully lift off on the 11th June.
Asda want to build a petrol station and large car park on the former Co-op site.
Shown here is the Planned Netherfield development
In this week’s program we take a look at the history of the Stonebridge Park Estate in St Ann’s including old photographs of some of the streets, and buildings. Also the Defend Council Tax group held a successful meeting at the neighbourhood centre on the Robin Hood Chase this week
Please share this video among your friends, on face book & Twitter. You are also welcome to imbed it into your own website or blog. Visit our Our TV Video channel We are also on Daily Motion
If you like this week’s program you may also like The Time the place | St Ann’s Well.
If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk
If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk Also Email your comments to us at this address.
Until next week, Have a nice holiday, Good bye for now
Richard Pearson
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Locals are deeply concerned because the footpath running along side there homes is being replaced by a new side road that will have no pavements either side. Local residents will walk out of there front gates directly into the new poorly lit road. As many of the residents have young children, they say this puts there offspring at risk from being knocked down by cars using it.
The Developer Asra Housing group have planning permission to build 15 new homes in Limmen Gardens, and work may begin in the autumn.
The Executive Board of the city council meets this Tuesday, when councillors are being asked to approve new changes to the Housing Allocations Policy.
A joint report by Graham de Max, Policy and Partnership Manager, Housing Strategy, and Sue Lomax, Housing Options Manager, Nottingham City Homes will be presented to councillors at the meeting.
The report takes into account the impact that the Bedroom Tax is having on people living in Nottingham today, and its impact on the available housing stock of 29,000 homes.
The report says Nottingham City Council’s Housing Allocations Policy is regularly reviewed to maintain its relevance in providing homes for people in need, which last happened three years ago.
Nottingham is currently experiencing increasing demand for social housing, in particular as a result of the Government’s Welfare reform agenda.
Currently there are just fewer than 12,000 applicants on the housing register. Approximately 1800 properties became available for re-letting last year, which means that supply is greatly outstripping demand.
The increased demand means that applicants who have low or no needs are placed on the housing register with little or no realistic chance of being offered a social tenancy.
In June 2012 parts of the Localism Act 2011 relating to housing allocations came into force.
Local Authorities throughout the country are making amendments to their Housing Allocations Policies to make use of the powers and flexibilities, particularly in relation to setting a residency qualification and in discharging homeless duties to the private rented sector.
The proposed new amendments include the Introduction of qualifying criteria for applicants to the Housing register, in relation to age and residency in the City; and non-qualifying criteria in terms of un-acceptable behaviour, home ownership, no housing need and unavailability to occupy accommodation.
In terms of city residency the qualifying period will change to 3 years to prevent immigrants from entering the UK and jumping the Nottingham housing cue, or transferring into Nottingham from other areas of the country.
It says that the Housing Register will be closed to new applicants with a low chance of success.
Re-designation of the holding band 5, which will become a band for lower need applicants who will qualify for older people’s accommodation.
Amendments to eligibility and occupancy criteria to relax previous age restrictions which were applied to ground floor flats. This is in view of the increased demand, particularly from those who currently have to pay the Bedroom Tax who want to down-size, or need to be re-housed due to regeneration.
There will also be amendments to the eligibility and occupancy criteria for two bedroom low rise flats to make best use of all accommodation which can be used for smaller families, many of whom are particularly impacted by the reductions in benefits due to the Bedroom Tax.
The introduction of affordability and risk assessments for all applicants prior to offer, to ensure applicants are only offered accommodation which they can afford and, where any risks can be managed.
Sanctions will also be introduced for those who are not bidding realistically or who are continuously refusing suitable offers?
There will be amendments to the Allocation Policy in order to facilitate decisions from Nottingham City to discharge their homeless duty to the private rented sector.
This is a controversial decision since the private rented sector is presently under a lot of pressure.
This is for two reasons. Firstly, Lettings agents in England charge tenants an average of £350 in fees on top of a deposit and up-front rent, a housing charity has said.
Shelter set up anonymous testing of 60 lettings agencies to record what they charged to set up a tenancy, make credit checks and other paperwork.
It called for new rules to ensure these fees were only paid by landlords.
But the lettings agents' trade body said it was fair that tenants made a contribution.
The Association of Residential Lettings Agents said that if this was not the case, then rents would rise.
Secondly, private sector housing rents are considerably over valued. The average rent in England and Wales is now 3.9pc higher than it was this time last year and yet the average wage in the private sector hasn’t gone up at all, with pay rises grinding to a complete halt.
The squeeze is especially acute in London, where rents are 7.6pc higher and where a quarter of residents rent privately and here in the East Midlands rents are up 4.1pc, according to LSL Property Services.
As a result we are starting to hear tentative calls for rent controls – compulsory limits on how much landlords are allowed to charge, and caps on annual rent hikes.
On June 12th the Institute of Physical Studies released a report showing that wages have fallen more in real terms in the current economic downturn than ever before.
"The falls in nominal wages... during this recession are unprecedented," said Claire Crawford from the IFS.
On top of the rising cost of living, one third of workers who stayed in the same job saw a wage cut or freeze between 2010 and 2011, said the Institute.
Whatever the decision of councillors at this week’s Executive Board meeting, it promises to be a significant turning point for every tenant, and those on the Housing Waiting List.
We are having a walkabout in Sneinton to view places of interest such as the windmill car park, the old Dale farm plot and the old Aerborn factory (cinema) site. This will take place on 18th June 13. For more info, please read on...
One of the benefits of a Neighbourhood Plan is that you can have a say about developments first rather than objecting to proposals. For the developer it would mean proposals are less likely to meet resistance as they would put forward proposals that are consistent with the area's NP. Parts of Sneinton are a conservation area but the rules are being bent by some residents and developers and the Council can struggle with enforcement. A NP would also beef up the existing conservation order and a Neighbourhood Forum could liaise with the authorities to ensure they are notified about anybody ignoring the order.
If any of this interests you may want to join the newly forming Sneinton Neighbourhood Forum or you may wish to feed you thoughts into it. Neighbourhood forums are community groups that are designated to take forward neighbourhood planning in areas without parishes. It is the role of the local planning authority to agree who should be the neighbourhood forum for the neighbourhood area.
Sneinton Alchemy have organised a walk about/place check on 18th June 13. A place check is a method of taking the first steps in deciding how to improve an area. Place checks are often able to kick-start change in a way that might not otherwise be possible. They can lead to anything from litter clear-up days to neighbourhood planning. If you would like more info on any of the issues raised, would like to join the place check walk about on 18th June or would like to be part of a local Neighbourhood Forum please contact me at steve.smith@sneinton-alchemy.com or on 07972049539.
In this week's program we give St Ann's a health check, and ask why the area is just as impoverished today as it was 44 years ago. We have film of the Robin Hood Chase 'Save our Co-op' protest; more news about the Bedroom Tax, and we take a look at the history of King Edwards Park.
Please share this video among your friends, on face book & Twitter. You are also welcome to imbed it into your own website or blog. Visit our Our TV Video channel We are also on Daily Motion
If you like this week’s program you may also like The Time the place | St Ann’s Well.
If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk
If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk Also Email your comments to us at this address.
Until next week, Have a nice holiday, Good bye for now
Richard Pearson
