Funding approved to improve homes in Stevenage

Stevenage Homes has welcomed news that a bid to continue delivering improvements to Council homes in Stevenage has been successful.

The Homes and Communities Agency has announced that Stevenage Homes will receive £24.5 million funding over four years to bring homes up to the Government’s Decent Homes standard. This means that the programme that has already seen more than £22m invested in modernising homes and making them safer and warmer will benefit more tenants over the next four years.

 The bid follows announcements in the Government’s comprehensive spending review last October that funding to repair the backlog of social housing would be reduced. Only 46 of the 70 councils and arms length management organisations that bid for funding will receive money to improve homes, those who bid successfully will receive less than they bid for. Stevenage Homes’ bid had to demonstrate both a need for investment and an ability to deliver a value for money programme.

 Roger Gochin, chair of Stevenage Homes’ board, said today, ‘We are thrilled that we will be able to continue our programme of investment in Stevenage Borough Council’s housing stock. In the past two years the improvements that Stevenage Homes has made to people’s homes has also changed tenants’ lives for the better. Although it will take longer than anticipated to complete our programme we hope that we will be able to continue to upgrade homes to a higher standard than the minimum Decent Homes Standard set by the Government.’

 Cllr Ann Webb, Executive Member for Housing, said, “We had originally asked for £28 million, plus an additional £5 million for structural repairs. The amount announced by the Government is short of our original bid.

 “Under the scheme run by the previous Government, we would have got £33 million. However, we will be receiving a substantial percentage of what we asked for and the money will allow us to fund a healthy decent homes programme in Stevenage over the next four years.

 “But, this year we will only receive half of the £11 million which we had expected, which means that many of our tenants who had been expecting their homes to be upgraded this year will be left disappointed.”