Credit where credit is due! Well done Shepway.
Shepway Housing Policy Changes:
Go Folkestone would like to commend Shepway District Council for
its change of policy over the last two years towards the improvement of derelict
housing and the pursuit of bad owners and landlords, which has reached fruition
in it’s official new Housing Strategy. It is a fact that when Go Folkestone was
first set up and was clarifying Council policy two years ago with such as Jeff
Stack ,the head of planning , that we were told that the Council did not like
using legal procedures because it was expensive and time consuming . They
preferred to concentrate on hitting the time limits for dealing with planning
applications. Go Folkestone, and we are sure others , pointed out the success of
Hastings and similar councils in taking to court and putting charges on the
property of owners who were letting their houses go to rack and ruin . The sad
fate of Ridge House, a fine Victorian building in The Undercliff at Sandgate,
which an absentee landlord neglected, either perhaps with redevelopment in mind
or out of sheer ineptitude, until the Council had to move in and demolish it,
was possibly also a case study which made some in the Council think there had to
be a better way. In discussions with Councillor Bliss before the change of
political flavour and with Councillor Cufley and others since, the Council has
moved towards taking wrongdoers to court, pressing schedules of work on them and
even in one or two cases compulsorily purchasing properties which otherwise GF
is certain would have been beyond repair and needed demolition within months.
Over 20 ‘section 215 notices’ have been served in two years where none were
served before.
Now Shepway is following other councils in having a new post of Empty Homes
Officer with a worthwhile target for 2004/5 of getting 27 empty buildings into
occupation. It is pursuing a joined up policy in which the varying agencies
charged with planning powers, housing the homeless and dealing with
environmental health talk regularly together case by case instead of working in
isolation. It is setting up a Neighbourhood Renewal Area around Guildhall Street
North, bounded by Cheriton Road, Foord Road, Shellons Street and the railway
line in which extra grants and advice will be available. It is continuing
despite financial stringencies in its proactive policy on poor housing and bad
owners. It is wisely using the market by opening lines to developers who are
looking for properties to improve. Finally ,following an initiative by Go
Folkestone to get English Heritage to put some money into some suggested
historic but declining areas of Folkestone , EH and the Council are co-operating
on a ( nearly but ) not yet finalised grant scheme for Tontine Street .
Go Folkestone has had some considerable influence in these areas, most of which
were suggested in various GF submissions on the 10 year Local Plan. But the main
thing is that the Council have looked hard themselves at their own policy and
changed it. The Media are urged to publicise the new policies so that
irresponsible landlords (and owner occupiers in a few cases) keep coming up to
scratch. They are urged to inform people in the various target areas such as
Guildhall Street North to start applying for grants and looking positively at
the prospects for their properties in the wake of the expected improvements in
the rail service to London.
Written by Richard Wallace (Chairman GF environment and buildings group)
Contact name Philip Carter on 07884187170 |
