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5 year Lewes District Housing Strategy Review

On 7 Dec 2011 at 9:48pm Matt Kent wrote:

The housing strategy for the next 5 years for Lewes District is currently being reviewed. The documents and questionnaire can be found at the link below. Cheers.

Check it out here »

On 8 Dec 2011 at 8:41am DFL wrote:

Matt, just browsed through the 2 documents and a few points came to mind :-
1. How are you able to identify how many homes are required ? This is not clear in the documentation.
2. The documents state that x number of households require y homes - does this equate to the LDC paying for homeless people in B&Bs ? If not, how are these figures calculated ?
3. If the strategy is to reduce the number of B&Bs being used, what effect will this have commercially for these B&Bs ?
4. What is the cost benefit analysis for building new homes versus utilising current B&B and or empty properties ?
5. The questionnaire is a bit weak, there should be a place for general comments as well. Hence my points here.

On 8 Dec 2011 at 11:19am bastian wrote:

DFL, LDC don't use B&Bs, they have Saxonbury house.

On 8 Dec 2011 at 6:27pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:

LDC certainly do use B&Bs - the Lynwood and Halcyon in Eastbourne, the Tudor something in Seaford and when they are full, they have had to use a place in Bexhill. Bit of a bummer if your kids are at school in Lewes!
The Lynwood (which is huge) may be being sold or converted. A planning application is being submitted for redevelopment or conversion or something. God knows where everyone will go then.
I'm sure B&Bs are dearer than proper housing.
Homeless people go from there to Saxonbury or other temporary accommodation.
Not everyone placed in B&B goes on to be housed by the council. They sometimes find that they don't have a duty to rehouse them, then they're on their own. There are also people who need homes because their present accommodation is unsuitable, it's not just homeless people that are in need.
Whatever way you look at it, there aren't enough homes for everyone who needs one.

On 9 Dec 2011 at 9:28am Peasant wrote:

The housing document projects that there will be another 900 households in Lewes District in 5 years time (no more people, just more smaller households).
The Core Strategy projects building 200 houses/apartments per year (subject of course to someone providing the finance), so 1,000 over 5 years.
So that will leave space for another 100 households - which is more than the current number of homeless families in B&B in Eastbourne, etc.
So no problem then? Or will the new houses all go to DFLs, leaving the homeless homeless? Or will they not be built in Lewes, which is where most of the homeless families actually need to live?

On 9 Dec 2011 at 9:40am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:

It's going to be more difficult to build in Lewes because of the difficulties in getting permission to develop in national parks. Apart from North Street and the Canon O'Donnell site, there can't be much building land left in Lewes, can there?
My guess is that most of the properties will be built along the coast, which is outside the park boundary for the most part. I don't know if the scheme for an Asda plus housing at Newhaven has been approved yet, but that included a fair few homes. Peacehaven can surely be extended without anyone minding too much.

On 9 Dec 2011 at 10:21am DFL wrote:

Peasant, I wonder if any of the homeless are DFLs ? Pound to a pinch of salt that most of the homeless don't actually come from Lewes, or at least they weren't born here ? Whichever way you look at it, the focus needs to be on providing homes for the homeless. What I was alluding to in my table of questions above is, how is the council calculating the housing requirement ? will they be building homes for "our" homeless, or are they looking to just build x number of houses regardless of whether they're for the homeless or not ?