Limmen Gardens planning application 12/02954/PFUL3

An artist impression of the two proposed houses on the site of the former pedestrian underpass (Now filled in), as seen from Beacon Hill Rise Road.

An artist impression of the proposed new houses on the site of Limmen Gardens as seen from Limmen Road. The entrance of the proposed new side road can be seen at the centre of the drawing indicated by the tree. 71 Limmen Gardens is the existing house on the right of the drawing.

The new planning application for Limmen Gardens has now been submitted by the Developer ASRA-Group, formerly Leicester Housing Association. It is very comprehensive and the first impression is that ASRA has spent a lot of time getting it right. While the application is on the City Council Planning website, this site continues to experience regular IT problems. I have therefore put together a Portfolio of the new plans which can be downloaded here. [52 MB].

The closing date for comments & objections is 16th November 2012.

There is no Crime/Antisocial Behaviour assessment for Limmen Gardens in the planning application, and at the recent public meeting of Stonebridge Park Tenants & Residents Association the local Beat Manager, PC Paul Dean, confirmed that neither his team or the Police had been consulted by ASRA. In addition Nottingham Drug Partnership has also confirmed that they had not been consulted regarding the new plans.

This seems strange as their are regular occurrences of drugs and ASB on Limmen Gardens, especially in the long footpath between the two rows of houses. With three new homes being built on the green open space at the rare of 71 Limmen Gardens, this long footpath is extended in two directions.

While several mature trees are to be cut down as part of the building schedule, I have been informed that new trees will be planted in the gardens of some of the new houses. The particularly nice Weeping Willow tree in one home owners’ garden is being retained, and as the roots go under the site of the proposed new side road, the road building plans have been modified so as not to damage the tree.

On going consultations have taken place with the 40 home owners & tenants in Limmen Gardens, involving home visits, since September 2012, assisted by Mark Lowe of the City Council.

For Nottingham City Council the Planning Officer is Joanna Briggs, and the Project Manager is Debra Ross. Michelle Walker is the Project Manager for ASRA. The plans for the Limmen Garden Phase 4 Scheme have been produced by Geoff Perry Associates Ltd on behalf of Lovell Partnerships Ltd & ASRA.

By Richard Pearson

St Ann’s Co-op protest hits the right note

Around 80 local residents turned up outside the Chase Co-op this evening to try to keep the store open until at least the new year. Carly William of St Ann’s projects & her partner arrived to support everyone, and Christopher Shannon of the nearby St Ann’s Advice Centre also voiced his opposition to the closure. Also in attendance was Nottingham East MP Chris Leslie, St Ann’s Labour councillors Jon Collins, Dave Liversidge & Sue Johnson, while Paddy Tipping, the Nottingham Labour candidate for the role of new Police Commissioner, made an appearance.

It was a well organised & peaceful demonstration, which was recorded by  BBC East Midlands Today, and a CH4 documentary crew recording a film about St Ann’s for the Dispatches programme to be broadcast later in the year.

The Co-op on the Robin Hood Chase is set to close at 2pm on 17th November.

Time Shift: Chase Neighbourhood Centre 2008

Report by Alan Lodge 22 October

On visiting this afternoon, we asked staff about the rumours that we had heard about closure. It turns out it had been an intense week at the Chase Neighbourhood Centre in St.Anns.

Much of the good works being conducted there are drawing to a close. Over 30 redundancies, notified at very short notice. Some paid positions and many volunteers. It is uncertain how this came to be, but we hope to provide a little more in-depth reporting of the background to this situation shortly. In the meantime however, suffice to say that urgent help is asked for and needed. It is an iconic building, there in the centre of the community at Robin Hood Chase.

One of the first projects down was the Youth Inclusion Project. An inspiration to those challenged by education, lack of employment opportunities and lack of self-esteem.

Awat Aziz from St.Ann's said: "I joined the YIP in 2003 and learned how to make cloths, which lead to a voluntary job at Urban Fashion  http://www.urbanfashionhouse.co.uk. "I'm running my own business now making tee-shirts. Before I went to the YIP I didn't know anything about fashion, but now I am able to make my own clothes. I also learned computing".

Some went on from the advantages that such projects give them, to become a mentor to help and inspire other youngsters. It is obvious when this happens that the whole community can only benefit. It is apparent the projects like YIP are so important in engaging with young people when they have more limited educational opportunities and if they have been excluded.

In addition to youth projects, it is the whole community who are about to suffer with this loss. Mother and baby groups, social groups where people can gather and share their experience, isolation for many is about to get more extreme. There is / was a large computing suite, this being so useful to get folks more skilled and hence employable. It seems such community provision has been so much more effective than anything the job centre had been able to offer to the unemployed.

In an area of deprivation, it was great to see efforts of so many people to engage and assist each other in life in general. A sense of community, ownership and sharing of problems and assets obviously follows from such a space.

I am sure that the lack of funding and support being offered to such community enterprises is very short-sighted and will inevitably result alienation, increased health costs, social exclusions in many forms and in increased policing costs. Thus in due time, you can expect demand for increasing funding from those authorities to cope with the fallout.

© Nottingham Indymedia

Chase Co-op closure: NHS signs contract with private developer?

I had an interesting conversation today with a manager of the Co-op. In 2010 the Co-op shown great interest in wanting to build a new store on the site of the NHS Wellspring Health Centre located at the front of the Robin Hood Chase shopping precinct. Until recently negotiations were seen to be going well, until the NHS suddenly let it be known that they had signed a contract with a private developer?

As the land is privately owned by the NHS, City Council officers said that they had no control over the situation. However, council officers must have been aware of the NHS being in talks with a private developer earlier this year, and decided to keep quiet about it, because, to use their own words “it was commercially sensitive.”

As a result of this recent NHS announcement, Co-op Managers decided at the end of October to close down their store on the Robin Hood Chase on November 17th giving just 17 days notice. Removing their business from St Ann’s after serving the local community for the past 40 years.

This Comment by Chris Shannon has just been received:

“They [The Co-op] should be bloody well ashamed of themselves.Their roots are as community based self help societies set up with the goal of bypassing the monopolies and enabling working class people access to reasonably priced food. They have made money out of that constituency ever since! Shame on them, they are abandoning the very people they are in existence to serve”!

Have your say, send us your comments about the Chase Co-op Closure, and we will do our best to publish all of them.

By Richard Pearson.

“our entire community can be thankful to you”

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Richard Pearson

Lets save the Co-op & make St Ann’s a nice place to live

This is a letter sent by myself today which aims to highlights the main problems with St Ann’s, and the new plans for the Robin Hood Chase Shopping Precinct. I have excluded the new £15m St Ann’s Valley Centre because it is a fine building & well designed.

I think that it is very important that the Co-op store on the Robin Hood Chase should remain open, and that the Co-op managers have a change of heart.

There will be a Protest gathering outside the store at 4pm on Friday 9th November, we will all do our best to achieve this.

Website Manager
Mr Richard Pearson
42 Bellevue Court
Nottingham NG3 3NA
Email stonebridge54b@hotmail.co.uk

Development Management
City Planning
Loxley House
Station Street
Nottingham NG2 3NG

7^th November 2012

Dear Sir,

Outline Planning Application 2010, the Robin Hood Chase

I am writing in support of all of the remaining Shop Keepers on the Robin Hood Chase, who feel very frustrated by the way St Ann’s Ward councillors have let them all down in recent years, by not spending any money on the shops or the Robin Hood Chase itself. Everyone has also been badly let down by some of the Project Managers responsible for the Robin Hood Chase Regeneration scheme, who have managed to turn the project into a complete shambles.

Above everything else, I am writing in support of everyone living near the Robin Hood Chase today who has come to rely upon the Co-op store being open, and serving our local community over the last 40 years. Many of these locals are either disabled, in poor health or elderly, and have difficulty travelling into Nottingham City Centre to do their regular shopping.

I sincerely hope that the Management of the Chase Co-op will reverse their decision, and keep the store open for the foreseeable future. I want to encourage the Co-op Management to allow their store to remain open while they enter into meaningful negotiations with Nottingham City Council to seek a solution, which will allow the store to remain open for the best part of 2013.

For the main part of my letter I am very critical of Nottingham City Council.

Read more of this letter by clicking ‘Read More’ –>

I am deeply concerned about the 2010 Outline Planning Application for the Robin Hood Chase Shopping precinct, because it is very damaging to the local economy. And the Project Managers at Nottingham City council have not consulted the remaining shop keepers, and have deliberately kept everyone ‘in the dark.’

The only money spent on the Robin Hood chase shops was £1.5m provided by Nottingham City Challenge in 1995. This was when The Chase was a vibrant area in the heart of St Ann’s, and well used by the local community. There was some vandalism and antisocial behaviour at this time; however, it was being kept under control by the Police & City Council initiatives.

When the Chase Neighbourhood Centre was built, and opened in the middle of the Robin Hood Chase Shopping precinct in 1997, this monstrosity caused irreparable damage to all of commercial units in Zone 3. The St Ann’s Library, Co-op, Pink Elephant, Post Office, Fish bar and laundrette were left isolated on the north side of the precinct from that of the south. These commercial units were all hidden from view by the big wooden hut, and there-after the number of customers declined significantly.

All of the frequently used shops, hidden behind the neighbourhood Centre in Zone 2B, including the Hairdressers, lost all of their customers and closed down. These commercial units have never been viable units since 2000, and have been given rent/rates free to local charities. This was a scandalous situation. I am not saying the neighbourhood Centre should not have been built; rather, it was built in the wrong place due to the 1996 planning blunder of Nottingham City council.

In my opinion, the commercial units on the south side of the Robin Hood Chase Precinct were more popular than the northern units, because the Chase pub was a big attraction for many local residents. The Chase has always been used for family gatherings, and well behaved parties following weddings or christenings at the nearby St Ann with Emmanuel Church. It was therefore a significant planning blunder by Nottingham City council to close down this pub, and demolish the building merely to turn the site into a small car park. This was very damaging to the economic success of the Robin Hood Chase.

The loss of the Chase pub was also the final ‘nail in the coffin’, and a potent symbol of the rapid loss of other St Ann’s pubs: The Beacon, The Wishing Well, Pint & Pot, and Dame Agnes Mellor’s, so that today (2012), only three remain open. The closure of the Chase Pub was therefore a disaster for St Ann’s.

During the St Ann’s slum clearance programme of 1972, a whole town of 10,000 Victorian houses, 55 pubs, 300 shops along St Ann’s Well Road, six churches, and community centres, were all demolished – all lost. This was a considerable planning blunder by Nottingham City Council because the authority destroyed the social & economic structure of St Ann’s Ward. Few facilities were put back in place when Wimpey's built our new neighbourhood.

The Marple Square shopping precinct suffered crime & antisocial behaviour due to bad planning. St Ann’s Councillors then decided to shut the precinct down rather then spend any money on it, or support the local shop keepers. Soon after, the flats/houses nearby had to be demolished too, and the land was regenerated during the Phase 10 Scheme. Therefore all of the shops on the west side of St Ann’s Ward were all lost as a result.

In January 2012 all that remained in St Ann’s Ward were 3 pubs, The Westminster, St Ann’s Inn & the Sycamore. Three corner shops; one in Robin Hood Street, Alison Walk, and another in St Ann’s Well Road opposite St Catherine’s Church. Two community centres: Blue Bell Hill and the Chase Neighbourhood Centre, and the remaining shops on the Robin Hood Chase.

Since 2010, Project Managers responsible for the Robin Hood Chase shopping precinct have made a mess of it! Their plans have not been thought through. Over the last 12 months they have completely failed to consult with local shop keepers; have not taken into consideration the frail social & economic structure of St Ann’s; and have employed poor planning design & concept.

While the Co-op had indicated they would like to build a new store in Zone 2A, and local shop keepers have said they would also like new commercial premises their, Project Managers have not entered into discussions with anyone. Their cliché is constantly “it’s commercially sensitive.”

Today this intransigence has resulted in the Management of the Co-op deciding to close down its Chase store on 17^th November, after serving our St Ann’s community for 40 years; the store opened in 1972.

From 17^th November, there will only be four general shops left in St Ann’s Ward, along side the Chase Fish Bar, St Ann’s Post office, a chemist, the Pink Elephant shop and Bookies.

If this situation is not bad enough, these ‘balmy’ Project Managers want to demolish the whole of the Robin Hood Chase commercial units during 2013, leaving no shops in the heart of St Ann’s Ward until new shop units are built in Zone 2A ready for use in 2015!

They have got no idea what they intend to build in place of the old Wellspring Health Centre at the entrance of the Robin Hood Chase. The Project Managers of the Robin Hood Chase Regeneration Scheme have not consulted anyone about this, and have constantly kept local shop keepers and residents ‘in the dark.’

One thing is clear, the small number of commercial units planned for Zone 2A on the Chase, will do very little to improve the economic structure of St Ann’s. The end result will be yet another serious planning blunder by Nottingham City Council.

In my opinion both Zones 2A and 2B should be made available for new shops, commercial units. There should be no office building put on any of these sites, and the Chase Neighbourhood Centre is well suited to provide refreshments from their own indoor café.

The entrance into the Chase neighbourhood Centre should be from the south side, for easy access for locals walking up the Robin Hood Chase from St Ann’s Well Road; as the current western entrance is trouble-some and unsuitable.

In my opinion, in 2013 the first demolition phase should begin with Loxley House, and the old Well Spring Health Centre. Nothing further should be done until new shops are built on the Health Centre site, and open for public use.

The Second Phase should be the demolition of the first block of commercial units that presently houses the Chemist & General store, and maisonettes above the shops. In addition the second structure contained in Zone 2 B should be demolished at the same time. These facilities should all be replaced by new shops, which should be given a major priority for the heart of St Ann’s.

I believe Zone 3 should remain unchanged and utilised for the construction of social houses with access from Aster Road via Hunger Hill Road.

St Ann’s Councillor Dave Liversidge is a portfolio holder at Nottingham City Council & use to be Director of Housing. Presently David has a responsibility for Regeneration & Communities. Therefore he is very experienced indeed. While St Ann’s councillor Jon Collins is also the Leader of Nottingham City Council.

I would like to encourage them both to hold a series of crisis meetings over the next seven weeks to sort this ‘mess’ out, and help to prevent the present situation turning into another planning blunder which will be very damaging to the St Ann’s economy.

In my opinion the social and economic structure needs to be significantly improved. There should be more shops opening up around St Ann’s, more community facilities for young adults to keep them occupied and out of trouble, and more pubs & social facilities for local residents to enjoy.

To begin with, our councillors could take a look at the shop at the top of Luther Close, and have it opened up for the benefit of local residents. This general store has been closed for almost 23 years, and is urgently needed to be open right now to serve the local community following the imminent closure of the Chase Co-op.

I apologise for the length of this letter, but I feel very passionate about St Ann’s & I want our neighbourhood to be a really nice area in which to live.

Yours sincerely

Richard Pearson

ASDA planning application to go in ‘before for Christmas’

I have spoken to Alice Rossi from Developer igloo today, and asked about the progress of ASDA putting in their planning application.

She said “Things are moving ahead, and we are as keen as anyone to get the project underway. We still have work to do, but we are hopeful of a submission by Christmas this year.”

ASDA plan to build their new store on the site of the former Wright & Dobson lace finishing factory in Carlton Road, along with a number of new social houses on the site of the closed Co-op next door.

The new ASDA store is even more needed now, following the announcement by the Co-op that they intend to close down their store on the Robin Hood Chase on 17th November, after 40 years. The Carlton Road Co-op closed in 2008.

By Richard Pearson

Residents try to save the Chase Co-op

The Co-op store on the Robin Hood Chase is set to close down on November 17th, despite opposition from Nottingham East MP Chris Leslie, St Ann’s City councillors, and local residents.

The Co-op store has been part of the Robin Hood Chase for 40 years since it first opened in 1972.

Now a number of St Ann’s residents have got together to form a ‘Save The Co-op Group. The organisers have begun an on-line petition, and aim to hold a protest gathering outside the store from 4pm on Friday 9th November.

The group say that while Nottingham City Council have offered to let the Co-op group have the Robin Hood Chase premises rent free, management at the Co-op have “refused to negotiate.”

They add that “the store is a greatly needed asset for the local community, and is the last remaining food supermarket in the area for elderly pensioners & people on low incomes to use, without having to bus into Nottingham City Centre.”

The group are now asking all tenants & residents who live in St Ann’s, to give up a few minutes of their time to join the protest gathering outside the Co-op store, to show their support in wanting to keep the Co-op open for the local community.

External wall cladding ~ How it came to be . . .

From left to right: Mr Nick Murphy (CEO Nottingham City Homes); and St Ann’s ward councillor Dave Liversidge.

My name is Richard Pearson; I am a Co-opted member of Stonebridge Park Tenants & Residents Association (SPTRA), and act on behalf of SPTRA to lobby government departments, companies, and council officers to provide new sources of funding for new improvements to our estate. My aim is to turn our area into a nice place in which to live, and benefit all tenants & residents living here today. I am also the website manager.

Looking around the Stonebridge Park estate today, and seeing all the scaffolding, along with the new wall cladding being fitted to most of the older housing, it is very pleasing to see that all my hard work seeking the funding from energy companies has been rewarded.

It all began nine months ago when Nick Murphy became the new Chief Executive of Nottingham City Homes in November 2011, and joined me on a fact finding tour of Stonebridge in early December. He had the bright idea of using funds from the government’s Community Energy Saving Programme CESP & the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) schemes. In which energy companies pay for the new cladding on owner/occupier properties.

Read more by clicking on the link

A few days later at the public meeting of SPTRA, Regeneration managers at Nottingham City Council poured cold water on the idea, and suggested that Stonebridge Park ‘may not qualify under the criteria.’ To qualify St Ann’s & Stonebridge Park had to come within an index of deprivation.

However, I pointed out that the City Council’s own figures showed that the St Ann’s Ward was high on the list for being a poor neighbourhood.

After writing to the Department for Energy & Climate Change, and speaking to St Ann’s Councillor David Liversidge; I established that St Ann’s does qualify for funding under both the CESP & CERT schemes. Unfortunately the number of properties in St Ann’s were few in number on the Index, and Nottingham City Council had already decided to spend all of its available funding on 1,000 properties in wards in the north of the city, including Aspley.

St Ann’s councillor Dave Liversidge then suggested the best way forward was to apply for energy funding through Nottingham Energy Partnership (NEP).

Nick Murphy gave his full support to the proposal and also wrote to Housing Regeneration Manager Mr Mark Lowe at Nottingham City Council offering all the assistance of Nottingham City Homes to help obtain a successful outcome. I also wrote letters to NEP and power companies urging them to provide financial assistance.

Good news came in April 2012 when N.Power agreed to provide about £950,000 under the CESP scheme to fund external wall cladding on the Stonebridge estate. Then local councillor Jon Collins (Leader of Nottingham City Council) made an executive decision in which the City Council topped up this money to make a total fund of £2.9m, so that the whole of our estate would benefit.

E.On then came forward and signed its own contract with the City Council to provide money under the CESP programme to clad 735 ‘no fines’ homes around Nottingham, including a number in St Ann’s.

The difference between the two contracts is that the under the N.Power scheme home owners were being asked to make a contribution of £6,550 towards wall cladding, while under the E.On contract the average price of cladding to all properties was only £5,500. Therefore, home owners on Stonebridge were getting a bad deal. I pointed this out on a number of occasions to City Council officers.

Since then local councillors & managers at Nottingham City Council have worked very hard to obtain additional funding to assist Stonebridge home owners.

At the next full meeting of Nottingham City Council on 9^th September an urgent decision taken by local St Ann’s councillor Dave Liversidge on 25^th July is to be agreed in full.

Councillor David Liversidge, who is the portfolio holder for adults, housing and the community, agreed to provide City Council funds of £99,000 to enable home owners to join the scheme by the August deadline, by reducing the amount home owners would have to contribute for the wall cladding.

Today the average cost of external wall cladding for home owners is just £2,170

Posted by: Richard Pearson

Video update: Cladding day 100

FIFTY-SIX Days to completion. The external wall cladding is progressing well with WATES contractors now carrying out work in Jersey Gardens & Limmen Gardens, adjacent Rocket Park in the middle of our estate. Some locals are still very unhappy with the ‘cabin-look’ cladding, and its awful colour scheme. This is because they say that WATES contractors failed to consult them before they agreed for this cladding being done; they were ‘all kept in the dark.’

This video presentation begins in Melville Gardens in the north of our estate, then Pym Walk, Jersey Gardens, Flewitt Gardens, Ferrers Walk, Dennett Close, Lytton Close & Eastam Close, then back to Lytton Close. Then into Paxton Gardens, Stonebridge Road, and ends with a view of the homes in Paxton Gardens adjacent Beacon Hill Rise Road.

A grand day out in Moffat Close at the weekend

St Ann’s Projects. On Saturday afternoon Carly Williams & friends attended Moffat Close Community Garden for one last time in 2012 to plant new flowers and shrubs.

The site is situated behind the Beacon pub in Blue Bell Hill Road, and lots of the plants have been been donated by a local nursery & Nottingham City Council. Carly would like to say a big “thank you” to them & everyone who has come along to help out this year.

They began work on the site in March when the land was a tip and used for drugs misuse, and after cleaning up the site, began planting and introducing willow fences.

Carly said today that they all looked forward to seeing the garden in a splash of colour next spring.

They have been given a number of old wooden sleepers from a site behind St Ann’s Church on Robin Hood Chase. They will now turn the wood into a number of benches to place around Moffat Close Community Garden early in 2013.

Meanwhile organisers of Nottingham in Bloom have invited Carly William & St Ann’s Projects to design a colourful shrub bed for the grounds of Nottingham Castle, which should be ready by next summer.

It has been a great year for Carly Williams & friends who've made a real difference improving St Ann’s for local residents.

Celebrate Remembrance Sunday at The Westminster Pub

In St Ann’s The Westminster Pub is the place to be on Sunday 11th November who are hosting their own Remembrance Celebrations from 2pm onward.

During World War I (1914 – 1918) St Ann’s Churches recorded that 923 soldiers died in battle.

St Ann's church 387
St Catherin's 64
St Emmanuel 123
St Bartholomew's 154
St Marks 95
St Luke 100

Poster Designed by Pete Loft

EU tax move ‘will penalise first time buyers’

Sarah O'Grady writing in today’s Daily Express says the European Union wants to put tax on the sale of new homes in the UK.

An EU plan to slap VAT on new homes will send prices soaring, experts warned yesterday.

Brussels quietly issued a consultation document that proposes scrapping the current zero VAT rating..

The move to charge the full 20 per cent is part of a plan to standardise tax rates across Europe. It would drive up the average price of a new home by £48,000 from £238,000 to £286,000 and have a catastrophic impact on the UK.

The huge increase would price people out of the market, make it even more difficult to get a mortgage and bring the building industry to its knees.

Only about 130,000 homes were built across Britain last year – a historic low. Any reduction in numbers would exacerbate the country’s housing crisis.

..The EU’s Consultation Paper, “Review of existing legislation on VAT reduced rates”

It is the second attack on the Housing Market in the last few months

A crippling EU regulation that could have damaged the UK’s buy-to-let mortgage market has now been averted thanks to intense lobbying by the National Landlords Association.

Photo update: The Robin Hood Chase

		Zone 3 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

These photographs were all taken in October 2012 and show the commercial units which form part of Zone 3 of the Robin Hood Chase Master Plan 2011.

The Chase Laundrette (Closed), Chase Fish Bar, St Ann’s Post office, a clothes shop, The Pink Elephant Store, The Co-op and St Ann’s Library (Closed). The Co-op store has now announced it is to close on 17th November 2012.

None of the shopkeepers in this block have been consulted by Nottingham City Council since July 2011.

Zone 3 is set aside for Residential use – The development is seeking to establish the principle of developing the northern part of the site for between 12-18 family houses. No layout plans have been submitted for this zone. Access to these new social houses would be by Aster Road vie Hunger hill Road.

Crime figures: September 2012

September proved to be a quiet month with few incidents of local crime being reported. However, the month was dominated by the opportunist theft of 12 electric cookers & other new appliances from the newly built apartment block named Beacon Hill Hose on Dennett Close. With no security staff on duty & windows & doors unlocked, it proved to be an easy target!

Paxton Gardens: Violent Crime 1
Dennett Close: Burglary 1
St Matthias Road: Violent crime; 1 Antisocial Behaviour 1

All crime figure are from the Police.UK website

 

Victoria Park Tenants And Residents Association Meeting

8th November 2012, 7:30pm
Upstairs Room in the  Bunkers Hill Public House

Members of the VPTRA will meet to discuss issues arising from the area. If you live, or work, in the area come along and voice your opinions on matters that may affect your daily life. If you have any concerns about about issues in the neighbourhood, these can also be discussed.

Update: National Audit office – Housing benefit reforms

The National Audit Office has reported today on how the Department of Work and Pensions is placed to tackle the significant challenge of implementing the reforms to housing benefit.

As part of the measures announced in the emergency budget in June 2010 and the Spending Review of October 2010, the Government announced changes to housing benefit, including reductions to local housing allowance rates for private rented sector claimants and deductions in payments to social sector tenants in under-occupied homes.

Full report - Managing the impact of Housing Benefit reform

The Department is actively preparing for the implementation of housing benefit reform, using available data to assess the impact of the reforms on current entitlements. It has estimated that the reforms will result in around two million households receiving lower benefits, with a smaller number receiving substantially less. Claimants with large numbers of children and those living in areas of high rent such as London will be most affected.

The Government intends the reforms to improve incentives to work and lead to positive changes for claimants. Reforms could also lead to hardship or an increased risk of homelessness. How tenants and landlords will respond is highly uncertain at the moment and the Department has commissioned independent research to evaluate the impact of the reforms after implementation.

The Department is also working with local authorities to identify the extent to which the reforms will increase the administrative burden on the authorities. It clearly has further ground to cover. Many people know very little about the changes to housing support; and the extent to which claimants have been informed varies according to where they live. Surveys of private rented sector respondents found that 87 per cent knew little or nothing about the changes that would affect them.

Uprating local housing allowance by the consumer price index, rather than local rent inflation, could put pressure on the supply of affordable local housing. The speed and extent of shortfalls could be significant. Downward pressure on rents or increased employment would mitigate the impact but NAO analysis indicates that, on current trends, 48 per cent of local authority areas in England could face shortfalls by 2017.

The Department has put in place transitional support through increased funding for discretionary housing payments. It needs to work with other departments and local authorities to monitor emerging issues and manage risks for both private and social tenants.

By Amyas Morse
Head of the National Audit Office

Editorial Comment by Richard Pearson: Today Housing Benefit is paid directly to the landlord to help towards the cost of the rent of the property. However, the Housing Benefit reforms set out by the government calls for this payment to be given directly to the tenant, and the tenant is solely responsible for paying this to the Landlord along with the rent payment if any. Critics say that the elderly \ disabled will be left with the stark choice of using Housing benefit to pay for food & heating, and paying their rent. And that those people troubled with drugs misuse or alcoholism will spend the money on dugs or alcohol rather than paying their rent, leading to a significant rise in evictions when the reforms come into force.