Issue - meetings
Rent and management of Travellers site
Meeting: 14/09/2017 - Housing Scrutiny Committee (Item 8)
8 Rent and Management of Travellers site PDF 96 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix A and B - Lynton Close Housing Scrutiny report - Maps and Answers to questions raised by Scrutiny - final, item 8 PDF 2 MB
- Appendix C - Lynton Close Housing Scrutiny report - FRA PDF, item 8 PDF 322 KB
Minutes:
Hakeem Osinaike presented to the Committee a report on rent and management of the Lynton Close travellers’ site. He explained that Lynton Close was an Irish travellers community of settled families who rent pitches from Brent Council on which they live in permanent mobile homes. The report set out progress that had been made against four key areas - financial inclusion, overcrowding, fire safety and anti-social behaviour- and the next steps to be taken.
In the discussion which followed members had an opportunity to scrutinise some of the site’s financial issues. With regards to rent collection and arrears, Mr Osinaike explained that in addition to Council rent, residents of Lynton Close were paying rent to a private mobile home provider. The implementation of a benefit cap had meant that some resident could not receive a full housing benefit and therefore were not in a position to pay the shortfall, thus resulting in an accumulation of arrears (total arrears figure was £238 000). He explained that although there were no plans to waive the arrears, the Council would not seek enforcement but would instead review rents of this site and will seek to propose to Cabinet a reduction of these charges to make the rents more affordable.
Furthermore, members asked questions on the contract with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC), which manages the site on behalf of Brent Council, what was included in it and how would planned future improvements be paid. Members heard that the cost of the OCC management constituted the greatest single cost and despite the competitive tendering exercise carried out on 2016 the procurement process did not generate any savings. Officers explained that no council tax money was being used in the scheme and in essence it was self-funded, with revenue gained from rents used to pay for the site management resulting in a net nil. Non-collection of rent, however, remained an area of high risk so the Council was
now in meetings with OCC to discuss the issue with the high cost of the contract and work was in progress. On the question on how improvements would be paid, Hakeem Osinaike explained that this would be done through the Capital programme. As a point of clarification, he explained that although money was available to spend, they were not ring-fenced and sat within the realm of HR.
In terms of overcrowding, the committee heard that this was largely a result of the constant movement of people to and from the site which made it difficult to keep track of the number of residents living in each property and caused issues for both current residents and the Council. In efforts to improve the situation the Council was putting together a team whose aim would be to visit the site, understand better the individual needs of each family and find appropriate housing options for them. The overall aim was to engage with residents and hear their views before coming with proposals on how best to improve the situation and tackle ... view the full minutes text for item 8