FOI request (FOIR-371970635)

Housing Stock

Requested Mon 18 October 2021
Responded Thu 03 February 2022

Please provide:

1. A summary of any housing stock transfer(s) undertaken by the council in the past, including the names of the housing association(s) and the year(s) of transfer.

2. A copy/copies of the transfer agreement(s) for any stock transfers.

3. If known, a summary of commitments made by the receiving housing association(s) for investment in the stock being transferred (for example, £50m over 10 years).

4. If known, a summary of commitments made by the receiving housing association(s) for development of affordable housing (for example, 200 new affordable homes over 5 years).

5. The council's understanding of the amount invested in the stock by the housing association in the years following the transfer, and whether this part of the agreement was met.

6. The council's understanding of the number of affordable homes delivered by the housing association in the local authority area in the years following the transfer, and whether this part of the agreement was met.

7. The amount of money received by the council as part of the stock transfer(s).

8. A summary of how the council spent the money received through the stock transfer(s).

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Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

1. Hastings Borough Council does not own any Council Housing stock, this was transferred to 1066 Housing Association (now Optivo) in 1996 as part of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT).

2. NOTICE OF REFUSAL

The information requested in respect of a copy/copies of the transfer agreements would require us to manually check two A4 boxes. This would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner. S12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 provides an exemption from the obligation to comply with a request for information if the estimated costs of complying with that request would exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.

We estimate that the costs of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit by a significant amount.

For this reason we feel unable to comply with this request.

3. Unknown

4. Unknown

5. Information not held

6. Hastings Borough Council does not hold a record of the number of affordable homes delivered since the stock transfer in 1996. Current records commence 2001/02 and confirm delivery of 337 affordable homes through Amicus Horizon and Optivo Housing Associations.

7. Information not held, our records do not go back as far as 1996.

8. This is published as part of the Hastings BC Local Plan monitoring report:

https://www.hastings.gov.uk/content/planning/planning_policy/pdfs/2019-20_LPMR_FINAL_incl.appendices.pdf