September 2008

After a meeting with most of the Parish Council, Community First have stated that they are most keen to ensure that their efforts are considered by us and our Parishioners to be be in the public interest and beyond reproach. They are to consider the method by which the Parish Council is to be allowed to verify the results of the most recent Housing Needs Survey. The Parish Council's position is that we need to be able to put hand on heart and state the we agree with the results of the survey. We can do this only if we are allowed to see the forms returned by those who expressed a (valid) need for affordable housing. Community First are reluctant to allow us to view the forms, citing confidentiality issues and this is the aspect of the verification procedure that they are debating. As soon as we have a decision, we will post it here.

July 18th. 2008

Since the last update, the PC has written a letter of complaint to Community First (CF), the registered charity which is the employer/manager of the RHE - the letter can be viewed here. A response was received, penned by Mrs. Elspeth Rolls, the then Director of Capacity Building and Service Development at community First - this reply can be viewed here. The opinion of the PC is that our concerns have not been addressed adequately in Mrs. Rolls' reply. There is virtually no correlation between our points raised; her reply contains a number of errors of fact and most of the issues raised by the PC have not been answered at all.

In the time between the above exchange and the next PC meeting (last night), we were contacted by Chris Whittington, Chairman of Cropthorne PC, who wished to exchange experiences, as his PC is currently enjoying the attentions of the RHE. Cropthorne was/is having a bad experience in the matter of an affordable housing scheme. Mr. Whittington raised in our minds the subject of the sources of funding of the RHE. Funds provided by Local Authorities and DEFRA were identified in CF's current operational plan, but there is an amount defined as 'other' which accounts for the majority of the funding applied to the office of the RHE. It needs to be borne in mind that the RHE is (according to DEFRA's guidelines) suppposed to be an independent broker acting for PC's and helping them interact with housing associations (HA's) so as to provide appropriate local affordable housing. However, it turns out that the position of Worcestershire's RHE, Nigel Potter, is funded by the following with 'other' being revealed as HA's:

Local Authorities

Bromsgrove District Council
Malvern Hills District Council
Wychavon District Council
Wyre Forest District Council
Worcestershire County Council

Housing Associations

Bromford Group
Bromsgrove District Housing Trust
Community Housing Group
Festival Housing Group
Marches Housing Association
Rooftop Housing Group Ltd
West Mercia Housing Group

Our PC can understand the funding provided by the local authorities but we consider that the money provided by HA's can produce nothing other than a confilict of interests. Consequently, we asked CF for the breakdown of the funding provided by the HA's. After asking five times, we were told that the information was not going to be provided - see the letter from Elspeth Rolls (now Deputy Chief Executive) here. However, enquiries along the same lines directed to the HA's are producing positive, friendly replies - it seems they are not so shy about the funding they provide to the RHE's position. We have had three responses so far and when all the data is in, we shall publish it in these pages. The reader is left to draw his/her own conclusions.

At the PC meeting of last night, Elspeth Rolls and Chris Whittington were in attendance and a lively debate took place during public question time. The PC asked the direct question of Mrs. Rolls: "Do you, as Deputy Chief Executive of CF consider that the postion of the RHE is truly independent having regard to the funding of his position by the HA's?" to which the response from Mrs. Rolls, eventually, was "Yes". The PC put its position to Mrs. Rolls which is that all confidence in the independence of the RHE had been shattered by our findings and she was invited to take the views of the meeting and provide us with a statement which might help to recover the position.

A new housing needs survey form is being delivered to all parishioners right now. CF has agreed that we can audit the collation of these results, though Mrs. Rolls' letter of reply to our complaint hints at drawing back from that position. You may rest assured, dear parishioners, that we will continue to apply the pressure necessary to ensure that CF keeps its original promise of allowing our supervision of the survey analysis.

May 7th. 2008

At the planning committee meeting last night, there was a discussion over the intentions of the Rural Housing Enabler to conduct a new Housing Needs Survey, this being requested by the Parish Council. Various aspects of the survey form were discussed and a number of suggestions to improve clarity will be made to the RHE. Also, we have received a 'self assessment' aid to allow any resident to determine (in a rudimentary way) their eligibility to be allocated a property when and if the scheme proceeds. This document can be seen here. The survey form to which this document refers can be found here. Please note that these documents are as received by the PC and may well change in the light of our comments before being issued to our residents for completion. The RHE will be sent our comments in the next few days and we expect to hear quite soon as to when the new survey will be conducted.

The Parish Council is most upset by the manner in which the RHE has collated and presented the erroneous results of the last survey and will consider what further action, if any, needs to be taken on this subject.

April 24th. 2008

The Parish Council had a meeting today with the Rural Housing Enabler to review the outcome the recent events. A full report is given in the 'Housing Needs Survey' forum topic - here - but a quick summary is that we have had it agreed that there will be a new housing needs survey with results to be audited by the Parish Council

April 16th. 2008

The planning application (which was due to be determined by an MHDC planning committee this evening) has been withdrawn by the applicant (West Mercia Housing) pending further investigation of the Housing Needs Survey results

April 15th. 2008

The notes taken during the public meeting of the 19th. March are available here

April 9th. 2008

The HNS report is an item on the agenda of our next planning meeting, Monday 14th. April, 7:00 pm at Hanley Swan Village Hall.

Still no news on the requested deferrment of the application. No response has been received either to our original formal letter to West Mercia Housing, nor to several follow-up emails.

April 4th 2008

We have received the full results of the Housing Needs Survey but we have been denied the opportunity to collate the orignal responses ourselves. We are continnuing to push for this. The results are available as raw results in a spreadsheet and a report analysing the results. The report is in draft and errors are marked within it in red - these have been fed back to the report's authors.

We are still waiting to hear if the planning application is to be deferred.

March 25th 2008

At the Parish Council Meeting on 20th. March, the council agreed to

(1) request that MHDC's Rural Housing Enabler allows two of our council members to perform our own evaluation of the results of the housing needs survey from the original returned forms, of course maintaining any confidentialities as required by law.

(2) request West Mercia Housing to defer the planning application to allow us time to perform the evaluation mentioned above and consult with residents and others.

Letters were sent today to both parties making these formal requests. Responses will be posted here as they are received

March 20th 2008

The Public Meeting at the village hall last night was attended by about 90 residents and a lively debate ensued. The meeting was chaired by Tom Wells, County Councillor so as to maintain an independent sense of control to the meeting. Many views were aired objecting to the proposal and the scheme's proposers responded to all points, not necessarily to the satisfaction of all of the questioners. A few residents voiced their support for the scheme. The elusive full results to the housing survey were promised to be supplied within two weeks by Peter Newman, MHDC Housing Manager and will be published on this site when they become available.

The Parish Council is most disappointed that MHDC's planning Dept. declined to send a representative to the meeting despite being invited so to do by this council, Tom Wells and others.

March 11th 2008

March 10th 2008

There will be a public meeting to discuss the scheme on 19th. March 2008 at Hanley Swan Village Hall, 7:00 p.m. for a 7:30 start. Invited are West Mercia Housing, the MHDC Rural housing Enabler and an MHDC Planning Officer. The meeting will be chaired by Tom Wells, County Councillor.