Place, Regeneration and Housing Committee - Thursday 1 June 2023, 11:00am - Feedback Tab - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Place, Regeneration and Housing Committee
Thursday, 1st June 2023 at 11:00am

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Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

1 Apologies for Absence

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Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Mr Ben Kearns (Governance Services Officer)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

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Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

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4 Minutes of the meeting held on 2 March 2023

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Place Regeneration and Housing Committee DRAFT

5 Monitoring Report

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Item 5 - Monitoring Indicators

Lisa Littlefair (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Lisa Littlefair (Private Sector Representative)
Mr Tamsin Hart Jones (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Helen Lennon
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

6 Housing Update

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Item 6 - Housing Update

Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Ms. Patricia Davey, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)
Lisa Littlefair (Private Sector Representative)
Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)
Ms. Patricia Davey, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Helen Lennon
Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Stephen Moore
Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Stephen Moore
Helen Lennon
Stephen Moore
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

7 Strategic Sites

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Hannah Andrew, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Hannah Andrew, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Helen Lennon
Ms. Patricia Davey, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
Lisa Littlefair (Private Sector Representative)
Hannah Andrew, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)
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1 Apologies for Absence

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:00:00

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:00:06

OK, good morning, everyone nice to see so many people here.

I think because it's started the new year, perhaps we could just go on the table and introduce our fells for four new members, do you want to make something

OK,

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:02:03

we'll make a startling apologies for absence, then have we got apologies

if we got some apologies, we've got apologies from Amir Hussain,

Mr Ben Kearns - 0:02:10

Councillor Russia, Councillor Scullion, Councillor Scott and Councillor Hayden.

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:02:16

thanks very much and can I draw Members' attention to the

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

declared declaration of disclosable pecuniary interests if anyone has anyone?

Ben

yeah, I just wanted to

Ben Aspinall - 0:02:32

flag up under agenda item 7 we have provided ad hoc

valuation and developed pretzel spot to WYCA on Langthwaite Grange and unnoticed, also under item 7,

an item sent in appendix 1 there's various references to

consultancy, support for the spatial priority areas and for site acceleration consultancy, which you know by phone would obviously be interested in.

quoting financial costs,

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:03:06

thank you for that, then, OK, no one else, okay and item three.

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

exclusion of press and don't think there's anything that will be excluding the press from this morning's IBR gated to just deck it.

4 Minutes of the meeting held on 2 March 2023

and then the minutes of the meeting on the 2nd of March can we agree those?

5 Monitoring Report

OK and then at some future as update, I think I think we'll have agreed at the conference

was really amazing for everyone that attended

before Matt that to comment on what they felt about that, but erasing it was worthwhile and to have it in lads and hopefully again next year and I think it sends a good message that what we want to do in West Yorkshire, and rather than travelling to Europe, which obviously puts people of one in and having it in lads, you can just drop in

when others needed and then those Wakeford we felt that we'd benefited, we hosted a dinner for potential investors and that's we've had a lot of good feedback from that like Kanye hosted that and we felt that it was really worthwhile I don't know anybody wants to comment on the conference later.

yes, thank you Chair them,

we got out as a business, we got an awful lot out of UK, but if we we

Lisa Littlefair - 0:04:30

were sponsor response to DDA and Youth pavilion, so lots of thematically as well as from better relationships, and I also sat on a couple of ate the panels. Whether you guys are the combined authority and I think just having all those people in one place very intense few days, I think we all can agree,

but absolutely brilliant to have it in lads A will be in Leeds again next year for definite, but I had no organisers that the year after they're gonna be looking for beds from cities to, I know I now. I'm

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:05:04

but I would I would you know, this is just this is just in passing, I

Lisa Littlefair - 0:05:08

don't whether they're good, whether actually go ahead and do it, I don't know, but I think just the sort of flag a really good partnership approach would would go down well, I think for any any potential bid to host it in future, but you'd be crazy to move it, so you know I say well, although

nos.

Mr Tamsin Hart-Jones - 0:05:31

thank you, yeah income. From our perspective, it was a great session, a great few days, and the first day in particular, so we started off at homes, England, who started off the morning until a new strategic plan which moves us into the space. Officials have been the housing and regeneration agency. In the middle of the day we launched the West Yorkshire Strategic Place Partnership together after a really brilliant panel chaired by Lisa, and then at the end of the day, we had the announcement around Bradford City Village as well, so I think for me it just demonstrated the scale of activity. That's happening here, the ambition, the opportunity, and it was a really good

demonstration of from the national to sub-regional to to the local so yeah really positive

so moving on as well, and

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:06:21

I do want to thank the committee's input for the successful, Safer Parks.

the plan, I think,

that's gone down

really well,

I think that's you know really beneficial for what the committee have put forward.

OK,

so would go on to win.

item 5

and the monitoring and indications.

I could yet emulate Brody.

Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:06:52

yeah, so this item is just to give sort of, or an update on, the

indicators from the the community of the state of the region report that motives are relevant to this committee's work.

on in figure 2 per 1 on page 2 you'll see those.

all those indicators that are most relevant to this committee's work,

of which housing affordability, has been updated since.

the last session,

so just give a quick overview of the data and the key findings for the report

housing affordability has improved in both West Yorkshire and nationally, both of which may right 9% on 2021

West Yorkshire remains significantly more affordable than the national average

newly built dwellings are more expensive than existing stock.

both in the region and nationally more reason for that is likely to be its own better energy efficiency within homes, making them cheaper to run at month on month,

and the Combined Authority are also very active in this space, with amoral pledge of a 5,000 new affordable sustainable,

houses are over the mayor's first term,

so just to touch on housing affordability, then

this data is published annually by the O and S and the latest data refers to 2022.

it is

a rather crude ratio of house prices to earnings within the district, and they're given at both the median and lower quartile levels.

for existing dwellings, new buildings and all dwellings together, so you can sort of get a better picture across the income spectrum and sort of the the housing lifecycle spectrum as well.

the way the affordability ratios are calculated means that there isn't really much consideration given to those monthly costs, so, for example, it is you know, the there's no.

there's no built-in sort of relationship between.

housing costs, it's basically a comparison of means one and lower quartiles, so there won't be any kind of discussion around how interest rates are affecting this right, for instance,

it's purely just of housing costs and incomes.

housing affordability ratios can therefore improve for two reasons. So either earnings can can increase by by more than in the rate of house. Prices or hot pressures can fall faster than wages, do

any

affordability ratio falls. That means that houses are more affordable and therefore in a better outcome, if you like, for for residence

also just for getting to the dates. I'd like to draw vivid distinction between housing affordability and affordable housing, which is on the agenda for for later item.

Housing affordability, as I've mentioned, just refers to solve the Barroso comparison of medians,

whereas affordable housing as defined by the National Planning Policy Framework

is housing for sale or rent for those whose needs are not met by the market?

so there is quite a distinction, despite the names being quite confusingly similar.

so when sort of looking at all dwellings, I guess, across the region.

it can place a start,

the housing affordability and housing affordability ratio has improved in all districts of West Yorkshire between 2021 2022,

Leeds remains the most expensive district to live in, where house prices are 6.8 times annual earnings,

and what we've seen between between 2021 and 2022 is that the change is due to both medium wages rising and house prices stagnating.

this led to the low ratio,

so the biggest change within the region, Kinney Coakley's, where median real wages rose by 12%

and house prices fell by 3%.

and that's that led to in, in the specific term, for Coakley's.

the house, price and housing affordability ratio falling to 5.6 times median earnings.

and then that kind of in the in the middle canopy of damage West Yorkshire really were

housing, is more affordable in Bradford at 5.00 comma 3 times median earnings

and let affordable move that 6.8 has media and

the lower quartile for all dwellings, which is

the 25th percentile, if you like.

housing

is slightly more affordable than is it medium.

so that ratio falls again to 4.8% in Bradford and 6.6% in Leeds

and again all districts are an improvement at this level

over the year.

that that kind of

effect at the lower quartile is it more kind of wage driven than it is at the median level,

so we seen housing house price stagnation

against a backdrop of of relatively strong.

wage which increases over the year, but it's important to remember the context of that's happened in, so we've seen a lot of wage rises from employers to support people with the increased cost of living.

and in fact housing the housing picture has improved in a way because other aspects have worsened so, for example, the interest rate has risen quite quite sharply in the past year.

that's meant that.

monthly housing costs have risen, so the supply of housing is outstripped the demand and therefore the prices has fallen a little bit.

so it's important to remember that kind of context that we've seen across the wider economy,

feeding into the housing sector.

move on to new built dwellings,

the dates is a bit more volatile due to vast differences year on year in the number of houses built,

and in this iteration there's no

data available for Coverdale. Unfortunately

I've been spoken to the owner's about sort of why that is it's because of a a lag in housing registrations in in the district,

and that that led to the not be able to provide a robust enough data

I guess the first thing to acknowledge within the data is that, of course, the earnings here at the median and lower quartile remain unchanged from the the first seven office on on all properties, so any sum difference relative to to all times is purely down to those house prices changing.

at the median new-build, dwellings are considerably less affordable than the average dwelling within the region

to the median new-build dwelling is between 69,000 pounds more expensive and 115,000 pounds more expensive than the average dwelling within their respective districts.

so that that leads to sort of.

the median level, at least

housing, affordability ratios of between 8.1 in Bradford and 9.3 in Coakley's

so, for example, that the median new-build house in Coakley's is 9.3 times. what the average person would in.

at the lower quartile

affordability is is again so worse.

so that the local new build dwellings is between 80,113 pounds more expensive than the lower quartile property from from each district.

and and actually it is a at this sort of level of analysis, we see that in Coakley's.

a new-build dwelling is 10 times lower quartile earnings.

and again as a soft touch and before I possibly be kiss he's new, but the lines are significant eats of more energy efficient so that the running costs month or month are likely to be lower.

comparing this data in were shortly to the national level.

as I mentioned,

the trend is is sort of on par with what is seen nationally, but the overall level means that West Yorkshire is

a significantly more affordable pay to live than the rest of the country.

the at the median housing affordability ratio for England is 8.3 times median income or 6 1 8 for West Yorkshire

in the most expensive part West Yorkshire sorry

the local title, it's the same kind of story again where the it is or both follow, the same trend become more affordable

at West Yorkshire means more affordable overall.

with the average affordability ratio at the lower quartile being 7.4 times annual earnings for the country, whereas 6.6 in West Yorkshire

in terms of what the Combined Authority are sort of doing on this,

the Mayor's pledges upon the delivery of 5,000 affordable and sustainable houses in the region, which recognises this challenge.

and also the combined authority, working with both public and private sector partners,

to support the delivery of affordable housing in the region and has set this as a key objective of the city she plays partnership with homes, England there is launch at UK ref on the 16th of May, the more information that in agenda item 6 is Rebecca

so just to touch on a few sort of implications before moving on.

when looking at the climate

emergency implications, as you mentioned, that the new housing stock is typically better insulated or more energy efficient, so being able to get more people into those energy efficient homes is likely to have a positive impact on the environment.

and inclusive growth.

while we acknowledge that wages have risen and that as a had a significant impact on an improving housing affordability.

in real terms, people are still worse off

due to the impact of the conflict in in in Ukraine.

and that's why it's fake homeownership more difficult relative to last year, despite followed with ratios improving.

there's also no considerations in this paper about the rental sector, where we have evidence of rents rising by more than 10% in the region.

and it also doesn't consider the impact of rising interest rates on the ability of people to make mortgage payment.

and that can be a significant challenge, we know, because evidence on the Bank of England shows that by 2025 75% of mortgages will have increased by more than 100 pounds a month, compared with 10 to 21 levels.

so they were sort of the key findings of the report.

thank you Chair, I'm happy to take any questions,

thanks very much for that

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:18:29

the comprehensive but well worth listening to any comments annual month Sony say.

next year, and obviously it's reflecting the fact that there isn't enough housing affordable housing, which links back to the housing strategy and the real impact of this is off and I'm quite difficult to measure, but it's the impact on demand and need and how that informs

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:18:56

the housing strategy so I've just wondered Rebecca how are we using this data?

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:19:05

yes, I can come in letter, so in terms of using the data, we work

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:19:08

really closely with Thomas's team, uninvolving that with our evidence-based housing strategy, which has not got a direct update on for this meeting, but we hope to bring something to the next meeting on progress towards that. So we've just sort of completed an evidence-based exercise which brings in things at house price to income ratio into that body. What's important, which is something that Thomas said, is that ratio is not fully reflective of affordability, particularly in our region. We know things like transport costs and how far people travel into work. I have a huge impact on people's cost of living. Some of our homes that are not of an energy efficiency standard

mean that people are paying more for their heating, electricity, etc so although the ratio may look good on the face of it, it's not reflective of some of those wider issues. I think a second pint at their kids. Looking at a local authority level, there is some really kind of specific areas within those local authority areas which councils will be well aware of in their own districts, where we have some areas that are maybe affordable, but people are facing other pressures and other areas that are much

much more expensive to live in as well, so there are some really kind of

specific areas where we've got to be careful when interpreting that data, all of which are things that are going to feed into our housing strategy development as well.

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:20:30

I am so obviously this is talking about houses for people to buys,

Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:20:37

notice of buy rather than renting, and I know that private rented sector is a different monitoring.

a different indicator, but do we know how many of these how houses will,

as I suppose, do we know how many new builds go on to be rented? Is that sort of role and it might not be completely irrelevant for this sort of particular discussion, but obviously for talking about affordability, lots and lots of people can't afford to buy their own homes anyway, can they so it just happens that sort of like playing about about houses that are being built for 4 to be rented out does that have a bearing on it at all?

yeah, absolutely, I mean, I don't have the to get to and but I would

Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:21:18

suspect that it would, and that's all I can find out for you and come back to you on if if that's useful.

can we agree the recommendation at 10.00.1 OK, thank you,

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:21:33

and then

obviously we're going on now,

Jersey item 6, the housing update.

6 Housing Update

thank you Chair them, so we're gonna take this a couple of hours

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:21:48

Falconer, the first couple of items then Patricia all update on Brookfield Housing Fund, so this papacy of the committee, an update on progress towards the most pledge to deliver 5,000 affordable, sustainable homes and also a bit of a summary of where we are with the Strategic Place Partnership

and there were revenue funding programmes as well. So just to start with, in terms of the in section 2.3 we've provided day a graph which shows the housing delivery trends for West Yorkshire

and we've gone back to 2017 18 to have a bit of context.

So I just wanted to be clear on on this graph that far 2021 22, those figures are a national figures and that we've got from the department of levelling-up housing

housing and for

that on the last community I think it is new in,

so those figures are published, deal up jerseys it does beg there's a published

for 2022 23, those figures are currently partial, which is important to point out to the committee so they're gathered from our West Yorkshire Housing Partnership colleagues predominantly at the moment,

apart from Wakefield where the local authority officers have been able to give us the full picture, so that's why the Whitfield number is higher so for example in Leeds the graph shows about 200 homes but the team are telling us it's happening around 578 in Leeds so take that figure as a bit of a work in progress I think he's what we want to point out to committee and we expect that that will increase as national figures are covered.

what's positive is? from 2021, where we clearly saw a dip, as in a period of lockdown construction sites. Close the bounceback in 21 22 was really strong and what we're seeing just from West Yorkshire Housing Partnership is there has been an uptick again in 22 or 23 from our Housing Partnership members in their delivery. So I think the the mayor's pledge to sort of galvanise the sector to work together to deliver more is is paying off, for example, in the brownfield housing fund. A significant number of those schemes in that programme are far out being brought forward by our affordable housing providers and I think one of the we're one of the regions where that's happening at quite a big scale. So that's kind of showing how these pledges really put driving forward that agenda.

and in terms of forecasts, the figures are very difficult to predict and forecast, particularly because we can only gather that data from West Yorkshire Housing Partnership which doesn't capture all the affordable housing development that is forecast happened in our region

and in addition to that there are certain numbers that that we can't forecast so we may see private developers as the market changes that changes that into flip tenures and offer offer products for sale to affordable housing providers, there's no no with forecast that figure. so it's always been very challenging for us to say how close or far we are from the mayoral pledge, so we work with our partners as close as we can to try to try and manage and track that, but we ask that in to see some of our providers taking on additional units

over and above what they have been to what they have got planned in their pipelines but on the flip side of that we're also seeing that some projects are starting to slip because of some of the issues we've been fleshing in particular having an impact on site viability

them and the ability to bring sites forward so the numbers are up and down very frequently.

so that some of the challenges we have around forecasting, we expect the 22 23 figures to be released nationally in around November, but for a regional level, in June times of the next committee, we should be able to give more of a accurate numbers to what's been delivered in 22 or 23.

I'm just moving on with the report with in terms of measuring sustainable homes. This has always been quite a tricky area, so they only the on this happen that universally used measure of sustainability is energy performance certificates, which are flawed in many senses because they're a measure of how much it costs and how energy efficient guarantees of cost gases cheaper than electrics are. Sometimes when some of those measures are in place, it actually shows that a property performance back to where it's got gas. However, that's the only.

That's the only measure that we have available to us, so we're working on how we can measure that, so we've couple. We've done some work to coupled with brownfield housing fund to try and understand where some of those homes are coming forward at an A or B.

So today we know that around 1,377 homes are expecting to have any PC rating of an AIRB F which 382 are also expected to be affordable. We're continuing to gather that data is the program, it is the programme moves and site secondment into the programme at different stages. That's it, that's a moving moving feat as well.

I think we've touched quite a lot on the strategic partnership through the UK ref discussion, so what say much more on that other than just took debt, the committee that the

Strategic Place Partnership Board met on the 25th of April in the run-up to you care Reef that's chaired by the Mayor and Councillor Scully and attended on behalf of Councillor Jeffery at that meeting and it was really sort of positive in terms of setting the direction around those three strategic objectives which are focused on our key project areas affordable housing and sustainability. and we've now got a team of officers working together on what the delivery plan around those ass' again at the next committee meeting in August will be able to give a further update against some of the key milestones against those objectives.

and then the next part of the report, I'll take together as the House at the current Housing Revenue Fund and the work we're doing to develop its successor programme, the has an accelerator fund. so a Housing Revenue Fund, with previous Audit Committee that that fund came to a close at the end of March, that fund is provided revenue support to all local authorities to support, with capacity resource building and funding to do feasibility, viability, testing, etc at various sites I think really importantly what that did was demonstrate to homes England that we have a credible pipeline in West Yorkshire that they felt that they were able to sign up to a strategic close partnership with us on and that's really informed what those focus areas of ours.

so there's a, the report does detail some examples of projects that we've we've worked on them and it's been really good examples where we've been able to take projects to market, we've also supported our local authorities in procuring developer partners propensity Village was a good example of that for some of the work that revenue funds apartheid health Bradford council to bring English cities Fund on board as they develop a partner and within similar working Calderdale with colleagues as well and some similar working Wakefield and so there's a wealth of projects where we've worked with partners

as that project has come to a close. that funding was devolved to us from government and had a timeframe attached to them, we're now working on the business case for the housing accelerator fund, which will be the successor programme, so the section of three parts of details where we are with that we're aiming to have the business case submitted. to assurance in July for approval at full Combined Authority in September, so that programme will largely do similar types of work but will have more of a focus around the strategic plus priority areas, but also one of the areas that we're looking at is our public sector controlled areas of land and how we can use that to influence some of our strategic objectives as a collective them but also building on that work around regional and local capacity building, recognising some of the pressures that work that our local authorities are under as well.

and something that's plus, the main update from my side I'm going to hand on to Patricia, to give an update on Bobby Housing Fund,

thank you at Committee be aware that brownfield housing for news and 8

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:29:19

9 million allocation received from government to bring forward developments on brownfield sites that wouldn't normally come forward due to market failure. as you will be aware, the government has set a number of criteria, one of which is that the be on-site before March 25 and also the BCR, a floor of one has to be achieved. we've undertaken to calls for projects to identify suitable developments within the region,

we also try and prioritise

projects that I have affordable housing and our building designs with low carbon, to assist in the mayor's pledge.

the current position of the VHF is that since the beginning of the programme, one project has now actually completed on site of 37 affordable homes, and that is in Pontefract eight further schemes are in contract and either on-site or simply going on site, and a further four have received full business case approval and currently going through negotiations in their together that means as 2,100 new homes of which 900 should be affordable.

in addition, a further six projects have also received outline business case approval since preparation of the programme

since the last Committee, one project, one of 30 has received full business case approval and delegation and is currently in negotiations that was for 1.6 million to assist with the conversion of historic building in Bradford and bringing into productive use for 70 new apartments, the development is in a major priority area for regeneration and is close to public transport links and amenities to enable a sustainable transport the value for money assessment reflects MBC are of 1.3 which meets the criteria for the programme.

as committee will be aware from previous discussions, there is a lot of challenges with this programme, currently the main one is the fluctuate and market conditions increase in inflation costs, material supply chains, which has resulted in a fluctuating pipeline with projects either starling not willing to come forward until they understand the market conditions including the funding market as well.

however, because of that, we deal with a fluctuating pipeline, but we have new approaches all the time due to viability gaps coming forward, and whilst we believe we'll be able to achieve the targets that government have set justified, they still remains a high risk as because we are not directly delivering ourselves, we are relying on the third parties meeting our timetables.

that's all from me.

any questions to.

yeah, thank you for that day, I just got a couple of questions around.

Ben Aspinall - 0:32:08

what book both aspects, but with some of clarification?

I think you are in terms of the housing target from the do you know to what kind of scale utopian items of business case and and I wasn't can you clarify how that relates to the new?

sp P is is, is, is it one and the same thing that we're actually talking about here, and they're two different things.

in terms of scale. So the strategic assessment for the at the 3 portfolio that Kim came to the committee and was approved was for 3.2 million for that program over a three year period. So that's what we're working on now and we're just working on the financial

profile

Lisa Littlefair - 0:32:54

of that across the across the three years, as as part of the business case development that we're doing

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:32:59

in terms of the SBP, it's an arm to support the US Pepys' housing accelerator fund, so the SBP doesn't have funding attached to it from either the Combined Authority, our homes, England directly, but it's a tool for us to say these are our priorities. So from a Combined Authority perspective, that's our revenue and funding that we can support those focus areas and those projects with which will feed through into the that business case.

yeah, thank you.

and

Ben Aspinall - 0:33:28

on the brownfield housing fund.

I just got question around.

but ramped it on to 2.4 to 8 ticks off at the top stretching annual spend and output from government, I wasn't quite sure

what he meant by that and that also you, you say the term

battle housing front cut fund all of the viability gap

so just wondering,

well, it is the viability gap who is funding the balance of chic have held that Moore had if he can't fill all the gaps,

what's the point of its odd thing?

the question is, I'll just

certainly like to

eat,

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:34:11

yes settle in on author unfortunate because of the rules by government, this is what I was referring to earlier, enter the stretching annual spend target is we have.

profile that government wishes to spend against, which is not reflected really of housing developments and going forward, so it's just to reflect that that is always challenged, to ensure that we're progressing and evidence and that every year to to government we haven't failed on that bill far in the last three years just to reassure you while it is,

it is a challenge and it is a stretch to have this unrealistic yearly spend targets as opposed to a pot being given in turn to the ineligibility programme for funds is the

the BBC are level, there is a requirement, and that's based on a number of factors, including long value so, depending where the project is, if it was in a low-value area, has the same construction costs against a high-value area, and therefore we can only put in a certain amount, so it does, and because costs of rising at the minute because of the restrictions on the form, we can only put so much money into it, even though the viability scope might be higher, so that's what that means, so then there's acres and that also goes with public sector options and the amount of public sector money going into it because it takes a cost of our public sector funds. Sorry, though, it's not that we don't acknowledge the viability gap, although it's a significant buy-to-lets cap, the fund allows us to put so much money towards it.

show.

yes, and it's whether or not that the our assistance can get them over that line, the tech a smaller profit if it's the private sector, are a longer term payback if it's Oppie's, but that's why we're saying it's reflective of what their priorities are as well.

you want to come in, can you press

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:35:58

next year having just a few points, so in terms of the West Yorkshire

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:36:03

Housing Partnership delivery last week we had a meeting with we appointed another member, so we now 16,

and that's pretty well all we're getting to the point where it's all the developing associations in the region and we're not fully there but it's mainly most of them then they are so that obviously the figures are reflected in here yet.

and as housing associations as part of our social purpose as well as part of our business plan to keep developing, but

it has never been a more challenging time to develop in Wirral experiencing the same thing,

and so

we just keep plugging away it is as as best we can and trying to. match all the different pots of funding.

on the SBP, I attended the first meeting, it was really positive and I got a real sense that the people around the table genuinely wanted to work together to overcome the obstacles, including planning, because obviously, homing home England, I've got, I've got some resources in that area so that would be really helpful

you ask for some feedback on the housing accelerator fund.

so for me it makes sense to focus on the the priorities ESPN priorities.

because homes England can actually support that that funding, and if we can focus our attention to think to actually getting some things off the ground and moving some of those obstacles, that'd be really helpful,

I wasn't quite sure about the self sustaining I mean, it's sensible to have please have a self-sustaining pot that we can then use to keep pump-priming other projects, but because there's some caveats to that I didn't quite understand how that was going to work and yes, the BBC are.

issue is a real issue for the brownfield housing fund and it was raised at the SBP to see whether we can continue to push government to

offer greater flexibility around that now that homes, England, have got an extra inch and a new interest in regeneration, we might be pushing more at an open door with that and hopefully sooner rather than later.

to spend the money, yeah

yeah.

yeah thanks Helena in a really helpful comments just on the app,

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:38:20

particularly just on the self sustaining element, I think it's an ambition, there's been some projects through Housing Revenue Fund, where we funded sale of a site which has generated a positive capital receipt, so it would be about getting some of that money back to come back into a central pot so we can keep doing and accelerating through that. however, we do recognise some of the projects that we fund at capacity building a sort of

quite high level indicative masterplanning work where it wouldn't necessarily be appropriate, so that's the reference to the case by care services and we work with our local authority officers on that as well, so I think it's a work in progress

as to how that will how that will sort of play out across the programme, but it's something that we're keen on exploring further and is something that we didn't do with Housing Revenue Fund on maximises at all really where we potentially could have done.

the

Stephen Moore - 0:39:13

hi yet just upon a clarification we mentioned about the PC does, does that include if, if there's anything done, sort of smart homes site does include tech, or is it just insulation, and those sort of you know the fabric, the performance of the fabric of the building,

and probably not the best person to answer that, I'll go back to our

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:39:33

colleague Noel whose self head of that area, but my understanding is that it.

it's predominantly the fabric, but it does capture

m s of the efficiency of of violence, etc as well, but I think there is limitations to it as one of one of the things some of the the newest smart tech at don't think he's cashback, I'm not an expert on that Stevens Ethan, taught colleagues and come back to

you, I think it's worth just getting on

Stephen Moore - 0:39:58

you have been named as mine does, I know that there is an increase in sales in a lot of those sort of smart home measures.

the statutory control valves and all of that sort of stuff, which would if it's not

on the radar,

a PC alone would probably be missed to show people are making an effort and will be making your saving as a result.

yeah, just on that point,

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:40:26

all of us agree that it's not perfect measure, it's the government's measure

and it's a government target, so we're working towards that, but in the partnership we are looking at how we can create a more effective measure for us in terms of our delivery, but obviously,

these kinds of things and what the government measures

are a bid from an observation from the matter, the meeting before

Stephen Moore - 0:40:51

last, because I think was the average cost 31,000 to retrofit something to to make it energy efficient, but some of this year some of the smart home stuff to get down 25% of the energy consumption was less than a thousand pounds so it was, it seems, like as low hanging fruit to the to be had there.

thank you.

yeah, thank you, I've just add

a note to sort

of pass on that we

Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:41:19

are collating it, Koldo we are collating a further data on affordable housing delivery and set to more closely reflect the numbers completed so that that information will come and and we're receiving some brownfield housing fund account green and housing teams supporting developers in a number of other applications so that's sort of quite positive and obviously we'd like to pitch to for continued revenue support for

coastal

under the new housing accelerator fund when that's what comes on stream.

then

they had just wanted to echo what Helen said about

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:41:54

Ben Aspinall - 0:41:58

the BCR not been quite irrelevant, I think VCRs is useful tool for government when they talk about programmes and policy level decisions in an allocation to project level, if not greater is not the grit is torn, I think you know what's got experience from regeneration

10 years ago when beyond them some of those other tools are more relevant, I think,

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:42:26

thank you, anyone else, OK, thank you very much for the report, but if you can we agree the recommendations set out in 10.1

7 Strategic Sites

case, thank you.

on to item 7, Hannah you're gonna take a sue this one,

thank you Chair.

so I'm here to update you on the ongoing work that we've been doing in

Hannah Andrew - 0:42:44

relation to strategic sites, these are varied work streams that are being developed and managed concurrently to ensure that links are drawn between them and that the value is maximised

ensue, supporting our objectives and those of our partners the report calls for work streams

I'm just going to

briefly summarise these now. as with the SBE delivery models, so this espn's all spatial priority areas and they've been agreed as the strategic and spatial focus for investment activity with all our partners.

there's a strong link with him across all the strategic sites work streams, as well as across housing activity, and in particular to the s p p.

we've secured development funding through the recently approved I P 3 portfolio strategic assessment.

and we are looking to develop a or secure partner to support us in developing bespoke delivery models for some of the ESPN's across West Yorkshire

previously, work across the ESPN's have been has been thematic, and what we're looking now is a holistic delivery approach to to individual lesbians

the initial development work will support further business case development and the potential to build capacity or leverage in further funding.

the Langthwaite site is the it's an enterprise zone and sits within lightweight Grange extension and South Kilburn Kobe extension s, so it is within an MBA area as well

but command authority on the site and we're progressing with works to unlock it for future development, the project follows on from a previously paused scheme and is progress was made at that time with planning approvals

we are now able to progress at pace.

in May, a full business case was submitted to the CIA's assurance framework to unlock just over 11 million in funding, this is to deliver the access road, linking the site to onward way,

and creation of development platforms with services and balancing ponds once prepared is expected that the development plots would be sold and a capital receipt generated for the CA.

this site is actually linked to the coast arbed following approval in February, at the CA we've formally entered into a joint bid for a national competition to fund a national centre for convergent screen technologies and performance in real time

and production technologies this is funded by UK, are I

and the bid is for up to 51 million?

to build a facility and support its operation for the first six years. the bid supported by university and private sector partners, as well as Wakefield council,

and if successful it is expected that the innovation hub would attract further investment to the area from creative industries, increasing opportunities for people across West Yorkshire to pursue careers and skills development in the culture and creative sector and that's closely aligned to Langthwaite site works project which is being proposed because Costa would be proposed to be on the Lancelot site.

and because Costa is required for the site to be available by October 2024, that's driving the programme for the landscaped site itself, although we are committed to do those works, so there is a link, but the they're not exclusive.

moving on, we have the West Yorkshire Investment's own work,

so the one at this was announced in the spring budget investments opened seek to harness existing strengths in key sectors to drive productivity and innovation.

West Yorkshire is second successful in securing the Nissan for the region and there's a potential funding pot of 80 million which can be sent spent across various incentives from fiscal tax breaks and capital projects as well as some revenue funding opportunities

to increase capacity and the CA is leading on the development of the Izoard in partnership with the five local authority.

universities and private sectors businesses, we're in the process of agreeing the sectoral focus and the geography with partners to be signed off by D look.

the next steps, then, will be on governance and interventions.

the overall programme is very tight, the government are seeking agreement of draft proposals by the autumn and for this to be rolled out in the early part of 24 25,

and the design of the iPad is being developed with support of D-lock who are held helping to visit, facilitate us meeting these tight timescales.

and then moving on, we have the employment land acceleration fund, which is again part of the I P 3 portfolio strategic assessment that was given approval in March. the programmes to aim is to give a targeted approach to employment, land acceleration across West Yorkshire

a business justification for a case has been submitted in May and it's in the assurance process with a view to securing sign off in July

in tandem with this, we are looking at progressing procurement to secure consultancy support, the next steps that were doing are to develop a long list of employment sites through consultation with partners and use a prioritisation methodology to store short list, these for further investigation or support and then start progressively acceleration activity.

the prioritisation methodology was appended to the paper

for comments and feedback,

it has been consulted on and amended through again engagement with partners,

and whilst the employment land accelerating fund is not limited to SBE sites, doesn't allow for prioritisation of for prioritisation of employment sites that are located located within or close to the SBE aims.

yeah, so the majority, the report is really just to update committee on the activity associated with strategic sites that we've been undertaking and but I am requesting specific feedback on that methodology, that's appended and says anyone got any questions, I would be grateful, thank you.

thanks very much

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:48:48

I thank you, thank you just just one point in terms of the some of

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:48:55

those sites as to whether this got.

for fibre BVB capability serviceable for those areas, some other longer range programmes will probably be outside of the open-market review that's been done for the UK, as well as private investment, so it's just probably already taken care of and just to flag that up.

yeah, thank you, I think, obviously yeah, the digital,

Hannah Andrew - 0:49:21

the digital connectivity is definitely something we would will look with and work with, and the internal teams who are already looking at gross size.

all

furniture just on the Langthwaite and this might be come at this

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:49:35

question, might be coming from ignorance, he asked

me if it is, but it took three years from outline business case to full business case, and I just wondered if there are any lessons from that.

at question up Chair.

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:49:50

so the original an outline business case was funded through the Green Deal programme.

At that time

we were over signal at home Enterprise Zone programme, 10 sites,

many of which were in third party ownership, including this one so the focus during the lifetime of that funding which ended, I think in March 2020 or 21

our priority for this site, it made sense to acquire it and put it into our ownership

because we'd shown that progress we were then able to put the site forward for inclusion in the getting Building Fund of funding round which we did and we were able to progress some initial works including diversion of overhead power lines underground to maximise the development area and to progress the planning consent.

during

these works, early works and early design of the access route into the site, it became apparent that additional land would be required to

to enable that access and discussions did start with surrounding landowners but expired during the lifetime of that funding. so I seriously think we see the nature of external funding programmes here and in terms of what we are working on in the background and that the funding proposal that we hope will gain Combined Authority support in July at we are looking at funding internally because this is a priority for the region and for Wakefield.

so it's trying to take control of our own destiny, I put it that way so that that's the main lesson learned, I think.

yeah, I think sometimes these things take forever,

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:51:51

but McClanahan from Wakefield. the so excited about this game, so we don't mind how long it's taken as long as we get out there.

so thanks very much for that, are there any questions on Lisa,

thank you, yet just just a word about the methodology I was just have

Lisa Littlefair - 0:52:11

a look at the criteria set out there and I just wanted to sort of

a flag about location,

I think it's really important obviously really important that we've got good connectivity to sites that come forward

but just a kind of

I suppose play for it to be not just around major infrastructure paces, but actually about can people from the camp is that psyche and well connected campaign can staff, can the workforce get to those sites without you know too much.

you know, change that doesn't already exist is already transport infrastructure in order to connect people to the the job, opportunities will be offered.

yeah, thank you for that, I think I think that is absolutely very

Hannah Andrew - 0:52:58

important and also one of the reasons we're looking across sectors as well, and a range of sites are not just limited by by size and the very large sites that perhaps a maybe an as well located two areas but starting to look at what we can attract and what we can do about things, sites that are a bit close to existing

conurbations and and transport links.

Ben Aspinall - 0:53:27

yeah, thanks to stop just on that point on the the methodological iron was thought that the third or fourth by point is scale and size and location

could actually be of that took together in a sense, because you'd assume that died excited of the suitable scale in a suitable location

as at the spatial poverty areas as well.

so I felt having

yeah scale and size, she says larger sites over 50 hectares,

but they could be in the wrong location

if viewed in isolation that criteria.

sorry, I think you have to look at location as well as as well as size and scale.

in terms of those acts that are already in the strategic in any sort of strategic programme.

yeah, absolutely yes, it does have a thank you.

the city ended safle mating.

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:54:37

thanks very much everyone, I think we'll have enclosed item in next to thank it's time to say goodbye to, but lovely to see.

Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)

Mr Ben Kearns (Governance Services Officer)

Ben Aspinall (Private Sector Representative)

Lisa Littlefair (Private Sector Representative)

Mr Tamsin Hart Jones (Private Sector Representative)

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council)

Hannah Andrew, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Ms. Patricia Davey, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

WYCA

Rebecca Greenwood, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Helen Lennon

Stephen Moore

Place, Regeneration and Housing Committee - Thursday 1 June 2023, 11:00am - Feedback Tab - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Place, Regeneration and Housing CommitteeThursday, 1st June 2023 at 11:00am

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

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Speakers

Feedback

Votes

1 Apologies for Absence

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:00:00

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:00:06

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:02:03

Mr Ben Kearns - 0:02:10

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:02:16

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

Ben Aspinall - 0:02:32

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:03:06

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

4 Minutes of the meeting held on 2 March 2023

5 Monitoring Report

Lisa Littlefair - 0:04:30

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:05:04

Lisa Littlefair - 0:05:08

Mr Tamsin Hart-Jones - 0:05:31

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:06:21

Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:06:52

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:18:29

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:18:56

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:19:05

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:19:08

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:20:30

Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:20:37

Thomas Newton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:21:18

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:21:33

6 Housing Update

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:21:48

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:29:19

Ben Aspinall - 0:32:08

Lisa Littlefair - 0:32:54

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:32:59

Ben Aspinall - 0:33:28

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:34:11

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:35:58

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:36:03

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:38:20

Stephen Moore - 0:39:13

Ms. Rebecca Greenwood - 0:39:33

Stephen Moore - 0:39:58

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:40:26

Stephen Moore - 0:40:51

Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:41:19

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:41:54

Ben Aspinall - 0:41:58

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:42:26

7 Strategic Sites

Hannah Andrew - 0:42:44

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:48:48

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:48:55

Hannah Andrew - 0:49:21

Mr Helen Lennon - 0:49:35

Ms. Patricia Davey - 0:49:50

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:51:51

Lisa Littlefair - 0:52:11

Hannah Andrew - 0:52:58

Ben Aspinall - 0:53:27

Cllr Denise Jeffrey, Chair (Wakefield Council) - 0:54:37

Place, Regeneration and Housing Committee
Thursday, 1st June 2023 at 11:00am