Housing Services summary of strategies

Housing Services produce a number of strategies and plans designed to tackle local housing problems. The Council are required to produce some of these by Central Government, whilst others have been developed as a local response to specific issues. All of the strategies contribute to the overarching aims of the Richmond upon Thames Community Plan, which is concerned with the social, economic and environmental the well-being of Richmond upon Thames and its residents.

This Service Plan(pdf, 250KB) sets out the key strategic aims and objectives for Housing Services for the forthcoming year, 2005-2006 and the actions the Service will take to achieve them. It is the vehicle by which high-level targets and aims contained in various strategies are implemented and through which performance is improved.

The Service Plan contains a range of targets based on statutory obligations and other local priorities. Performance against these targets is monitored through quarterly monitoring reports(pdf, 115KB) whereby a ‘traffic light’ system of reporting is used. Green means the standard is likely to be met, yellow means the standard is likely to be met with identified changes, and red means the standard is not likely to be met.

The Housing Strategy 2004-2007 covers the whole range of housing issues facing Richmond upon Thames and identifies the challenges to be faced and how the Council, with its partners, intend to deal with them.  It is complemented by a number of more detailed strategies that are focussed on specific issues, as laid out below.

The Homelessness Strategy 2003 – 2007 sets out how the Council, with its partners, plans to reduce homelessness in Richmond upon Thames by adopting an approach based on prevention and increasing the supply of suitable accommodation and support available to households at risk of homelessness.

The Supporting People Strategy 2005-2010 outlines how our plans to enable vulnerable people to live independently within Richmond upon Thames.  The strategy is accompanied by an Evidence Base that provides detailed information on the demand for and supply of housing support within Richmond upon Thames.

The Black & Minority Ethnic Housing Strategy 2005-2008 describes the particular housing problems faced by BME communities within the borough and the accompanying action plan sets out what the borough and its partners will be doing to promote equality of opportunity and community relations.

The Young People’s Housing Strategy 2004 to 2008 aims to improve the housing options and opportunities for young people.  The Young People’s Housing sub-group of the Homelessness Forum is responsible for ensuring that the targets contained in this strategy and the Supported Housing Strategy for Teenage Parents are delivered.

The Housing Service's Private Sector Housing Renewal Policy(pdf, 680KB) sets out the Council's priorities for offering grants, loans and other forms of assistance to help improve private sector housing in the borough. The original policy was published in summer 2003 and was reviewed in 2004(pdf, 66KB).

The Private sector housing enforcement policy(pdf, 81KB) relates to the duties and powers vested in the Council to deal with substandard private sector housing, substandard management of private housing and the enforcement of various legal aspects of the relationship between neighbouring residents or landlords and their tenants.

The draft Key Worker Housing Strategy 2001 outlines how the Council wishes to help meet the housing needs of key workers.

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is part of the South West London Housing Partnership, along with the boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth. Formed in response to the Government’s new regional approach to the allocation of housing resources and the setting up of the London Housing Board, the partnership launached a Housing Strategy for south-west London(pdf, 481KB) in April 2004.  The strategy’s aims include putting the case to the London Housing Board for investment in south-west London and promoting cross-borough working to tackle housing problems that are common to all the boroughs.