Unlocking much-needed housing

A new forum brought housing providers and Council teams together to strengthen partnership working and help deliver more homes for local people.  The first meeting of our new Registered Provider Forum took place in September.

The forum aims to strengthen partnerships and help secure a pipeline of homes for rent where they are needed most, supporting households at risk of homelessness.  The forum brought together planners, housing officers and registered providers (housing associations) that offer homes across the District. We discussed local challenges to help improve understanding and remove barriers to delivering homes.

This network will foster stronger working relationships and help housing projects progress more effectively.

Homes for Tomorrow: our housing strategy

We will be publishing the first yearly review of our housing strategy early in the new year. As a continuously evolving strategy, this annual review will help ensure our priorities respond to current pressures, residents' needs, available funding opportunities, government policy and emerging delivery options.

The review will highlight progress made during the year, key achievements and priorities for the year ahead. It will also identify areas where we need to focus our efforts to continue delivering positive housing outcomes for residents.

Providing new homes

More than 780 affordable homes have been provided across the District over the past five years, including eight new social rented homes at Fairfield Cottages in Cowfold. Delivered in partnership with Saxon Weald, these eight newly completed social rented homes will help local people on the housing register access safe, secure and long-term housing.

In addition, several new housing schemes are expected to be completed during the coming months, while further developments are due to be considered through the approval process later this year.

Together, these projects will help increase the supply of homes across the District and meet growing local demand.

Projects include:

Through the use of Section 106 (S106) funding and our partnership with Saxon Weald, we successfully completed the retrofit of two larger family homes in Partridge Green and Steyning. These properties have been retained as housing and allocated to households in the greatest need from our housing register.

Building on this success, we are continuing to work with Saxon Weald to bring forward the retrofit of a further five properties across the District. Supported by around £600k of S106 developer contributions towards local community infrastructure, this investment will ensure these properties are retained as homes for those households in greatest need rather than being sold on the open market. This will help meet the significant demand for larger family-sized homes.

In addition, we are working in partnership with Saxon Weald on the redevelopment of seven garage sites across the District.

Supported by Homes England funding, Horsham District Council will invest almost £2.3 million to enable the delivery of 22 new social rented homes for households in the greatest housing need. The provision of social rented housing is particularly important to help ensure that lower-income families have access to secure and sustainable housing.