Housing Allocation Information

A short while ago, I worried about proposed changes to Council House Allocation Policy.

Part of the justification given for the charges is

"the reasons behind the proposed changes are primarily to ensure the Council makes best use of
its stock and to give applicants realistic housing options. If you look at the attached spreadsheet for Formartine it shows that out of the 24 settlement 5 have a stock of 3 or less houses; 9 had no turnover in 2010/2011 and a further 8 had turnover of only 1 or 2 houses. While allowing applicants to chose from 24 settlement may appear to offer choice, in reality it is misleading in that there is either no or very little turnover in many of these settlements."

But over 40% give the reason for refusal in Formartine as Not Area Desired.  Just how does forcing people to specify a larger area help this?

Reason	%
Garden unsuitable	1.3
Heating	2.6
No longer require housing	10.4
No reason given	1.3
No response within 5 working days	7.8
Not area desired	42.9
Not ready to move	18.2
Property type unsuitable	2.5
Property unsuitable	13.0

Wouldn't it be better to be honest with people about the (lack of) houses available across the area:

Formartine	1 bed	2 bed	3 bed	4 bed
AUCHEDLY			1
AUCHTERLESS			4
BALMEDIE	9	10	2
BARRAVALE			1
BEREFOLD			2
CAIRNHILL			5
COLLIESTON	3	1
CUMINESTOWN	11	21	14	1
DAVIOT	3	2	4
ELLON	134	92	51
FOVERAN			3
FYVIE	32	20	11
KINHARRACHIE			1
METHLICK	20	17	4
NEWBURGH	12	10	13
OLDMELDRUM	50	56	10	4
PITMEDDEN	14	25	22
POTTERTON		11	15
ROTHIENORMAN	24	25	8
TARVES	29	14	6	5
TIPPERTY		3	4
TURRIFF	99	130	66	2
UDNY GREEN	7	2	2
UDNY STATION	17	16	7

and ask them to pick enough areas where they would accept a house as possible, pointing out that the total turnover last year was only 82 houses against a waiting list of 951.

Or does the council think that prospective council house tenants are too stupid to figure out that where houses are in short supply, their odds of getting offered anything is close to snowball in hell - but that if they choose places with some stock, there is a better chance?

Empty Home

Housing standing empty for long periods are a problem and could make a contribution to the housing stock if they were brought back into use.  The first step is to know about them.
If you know of an empty home, please use Report Empty Homes.

Council housing allocation policy

I'm worried.

The Council is currently consulting on changing many aspects of its housing allocation policies but is trying to fast track some changes (see the full report here).

The proposals that worry me are

1. to reduce the number of reasonable offer from 2 to 1 and reduce the suspension period for refusal of a reasonable offer from 12 months to 6 months.

2. combine the existing letting areas (basically settlements) into larger units and ask people to select at least 2 of these bigger units rather than 5 settlements.

In Formartine, people would then be required to select 2 from:

Balmedie/Potterton/Blackdog
Ellon/Auchedly/Berefold/Cairnhill/Collieston/Foveran/Kinharrachie/Newburgh/Tipperty/Methlick
Fyvie/Auchterless/Rothienorman/Meikle Wartle
Oldmeldrum/Barravale/Pitmedden/Tarves/Udny Green/Udny Station
Turriff/Cuminestown

Any 2 of those 5 would cover a big area.  If people have places of work, family and friends who provide essential social support (taking care of the kids after school, etc), maybe it is simply not possible to live in Methlick rather than Potterton (16.5 miles away) : and the definition of reasonable is based on the housing need not wider social needs.

Council officers told us that the average number of people who are offered a council house before accepting it is 2.4 - or to put it another way, there is a 60% chance of someone turning down a house that is offered to them.  Locally we were told that the reason is rarely the quality of the house - so it must be location.  We are under pressure to let houses faster and reduce the housing waiting list.  But forcing people to select a large area and then saying "take it or suspend you from the waiting list for 6 months" doesn't seen to me to be very helpful.

People understand that if they pick a very small high demand area, they will wait a long time.  But surely that is their look out.  Offering people houses that they are even less likely to take because it is in a location they don't want, doesn't seem helpful to me.

Wouldn't we be better to tell people how many houses there are in each area and, if possible, the turnover?  The people who can be flexible will get a better chance of a house.   But if the need is specific, then that is just the way it is.  Offering houses in the wrong place will help no-one - except perhaps a statistician, looking to reduce the length of the waiting list.

I'd like to hear your views on this.

New Aberdeenshire Local Plan

Yesterday and today I spent looking at allocating houses and employment land to settlements in Formartine (my bit of Aberdeenshire).


View Aberdeenshire Local Plan 2007-2023 in a larger map

It's difficult to get information out on what is happening but I'm trying so I've put the decisions so far onto a Google map.  I've used symbols for housing, employment sites and written in the detail.  Some sites are very large and you'll need to look at the full documentation.

A further report will come to a future meeting of Formartine Area Committee to look at development around Potterton as an alternative to development at the south of Oldmeldrum.  The debate amongst the local councillors is mainly a) whether Potterton is in the Strategic Growth Area or not (50:50 according to the Head of Planning Policy) and b) whether development should be north or south of the Potterton.

But what do the people of Potterton think?


I'll post more as as I can try to expand to other bits of Aberdeenshire when I can - but currently I don't have the information.

Let me know what you think and I'll let you know when the formal plan is published and how you can comment or object to it formally.