Observer column 19 July 2024

I am writing this the day after the King's speech, in which a raft of new bills were announced, including a very welcome bill to remove no-fault evictions, mentioned in my last column.

The first full council of the new Green administration voted through unanimously the ambitious housing acquisition policy to purchase approximately 134 homes for temporary accommodation and  a commitment to build the first new council housing for a generation: eight one-bed and eight two-bed energy-efficient homes, a modest start but we need to learn how to build council housing again after a gap of more than thirty years. Councillors from all political parties spoke warmly of the good start made by the officers on tackling the housing crisis in this town. Our cross-party Housing Taskforce got off to an energetic and positive start. We need to develop a long-term plan to bring our temporary accommodation numbers down from the current five hundred plus households to low double figures.

At last Sunday's Hastings Housing Alliance I was asked many challenging questions about what we will do as an administration to tackle the housing crisis. I welcome the contributions of this umbrella group, which has been putting pressure on our social housing providers both to stop selling off existing social housing and to bring empty blocks of flats back into use or to justify why they are planning to demolish and rebuild them. We are working on a long-term housing strategy which will allow us to bring in a standards-raising licensing scheme for the private rented sector. We will also work toward bringing the Hastings's 800 empty homes back into use.

On another subject that tops residents' concerns, in my role as a county councillor on a potholes-performance scrutiny committee, I was pleased to join in demanding that the highways contractor should publish annual performance figures on highway repairs. No one will be surprised to learn that in its first year as highways contractor Balfour Beatty Living Places failed to reach several of the county's performance targets, including those for pothole repair. Their representatives told us they have improvement plans in place. I have asked for a six-month progress report. Anyone looking at the time it has taken for poor-quality repairs to be carried out in our town centre, among other places will take a lot to be convinced that standards really will improve.