Issue - meetings

Future Housing Consultation

Meeting: 30/05/2019 - Executive (Item 8)

8 Future Housing Consultation pdf icon PDF 152 KB

Decision:

That the Special Council Executive Committee be recommended to:

 

1)        approve the future housing consultation, in the form set out in paragraph 3.1;

 

2)        authorise a supplementary estimate of £45,000-£80,000, to fund the consultation;

 

3)        authorise the Director of Corporate Services and Director Locality and Customer Services, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, to agree minor amendments, if necessary, prior to consultation.

Minutes:

The Executive considered a report relating to a proposed public consultation which would seek residents’ opinion on the Government’s housing requirement for Wokingham Borough.

 

The Executive Member for Planning and Enforcement outlined the proposed consultation and the reason for it and advised that it had been widely publicised following mention of it at full Council in March.  Councillor Smith proposed a change to the recommendation to state that the Executive was recommending the consultation to the Special Council Executive Committee which would be meeting after the Executive.   This amendment was agreed by the Executive.

 

Councillor Jorgensen noted that it was proposed to have a mixture of on-line surveys and postcards and queried what protection there would be to stop people voting twice and how the electronic voting would be validated?  In addition because of the importance of the consultation and wanting to ensure that the views of residents would be taken forward, and there would be no legal issues that could prohibit this, Councillor Jorgensen asked whether any advice had been taken about whether the electronic voting was valid?  Councillor Smith confirmed that this particular question had been raised and considered and as a result every household would be provided with a unique reference number and validation checks would be carried out on both the on-line and freepost options.

 

RESOLVED that the Special Council Executive Committee be recommended to:

 

1)        approve the future housing consultation, in the form set out in paragraph 3.1;

 

2)        authorise a supplementary estimate of £45,000-£80,000, to fund the consultation;

 

3)        authorise the Director of Corporate Services and Director Locality and Customer Services, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, to agree minor amendments, if necessary, prior to consultation.


Meeting: 30/05/2019 - Special Council Executive Committee (Item 8)

8 Future Housing Consultation pdf icon PDF 152 KB

To consider recommendations from the Executive in relation to a proposed public consultation on future housing in Wokingham Borough.

 

RECOMMENDATION that the Special Council Executive Committee:

 

1)        approve the future housing consultation, in the form set out in paragraph 3.1;

 

2)         authorise a supplementary estimate of £45,000 - £80,000 to fund the consultation;

 

3)         authorise the Director of Corporate Services and Director Locality and Customer Services, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, to agree minor amendments, if necessary, prior to consultation.

 

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report from the Executive in relation to a proposed consultation on future housing numbers in Wokingham Borough.

 

Councillor Bray, whilst confirming that she was in support of the consultation which she felt should be undertaken on an all-party basis, queried what level of response would be seen as successful and what would happen if the expected number of responses were not received?  Councillor Smith stated that it was difficult to predict how many responses would be received however he hoped, given the number of people who had recently signed petitions relating to housing in the Borough and from discussions with resident groups etc that in excess of 15,000 would respond.  In addition he hoped that all Members would encourage their residents to respond to the consultation.

 

Councillor Bray felt the proposed question was not the right one as it was only asking whether people agreed with the housing figure and didn’t take account of whether people agreed with the figure because they felt it was too high or too low.  She felt that if this finding was presented to the Government they could argue that the Council had not got complete validation from residents as they might have answered it the other way.  Councillor Bray therefore proposed that the question be reworded to say “is the current target for the Borough too high, about right or too low” as this would give more clarity to the final outcome.  A box asking “why do you think that” would be useful as this might provide additional supporting evidence that could be presented to the Government.

 

Councillor Ferris agreed with Councillor Bray’s comments as although he believed that the sentiment of the question was right he too felt that more work was needed on the wording. He too did not want something presented to the Government that would enable them to argue against the findings.  The question had to be really clear and simple in order that the answer coming out was not ambiguous.

 

Councillor Bray asked that information explaining how the housing targets were derived at, and who they were imposed by, should be included in the consultation preamble.  This could also include an explanation of the number of houses the Council was expected to build and the number of houses that had been built so that a comparison could be shown.  Councillor Smith acknowledged the point that was being made but highlighted the complicated nature of how the targets were derived at and how difficult it was to explain this which was why a single question was being proposed.

 

In relation to the cost of the consultation, which was shown as £45k-80k in the report, Councillor Bray queried what the breakdown of this figure was including how much the costs were for: creating the mailshot; distribution; publicity; postage replies and processing the replies as there were different ways of undertaking the consultation which would impact the costs.

 

Councillor Bray also queried information within the report which she  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8