Spelthorne Borough Council

Providing Quality Services to the People of
Ashford, Laleham, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell & Sunbury

The Spelthorne Landscape

Spelthorne is a compact urban Borough resting 15 miles west of Central London. It is bordered by the M25 to the west, the River Thames to the south and west, the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames to the east, and Heathrow Airport to the north. Given its location close to London and Heathrow - with its good transport links by road, rail and air, it is not surprising that commercially the area is one of the most significant in Surrey. About 20% of all commercial or industrial property in the County is located in the Borough. This includes the headquarters of many national and international companies, such as BP Amoco, Courage, the Ian Allen Group, Del Monte, Attenda (a web hosting company), Samsung Electronics and Shepperton Film Studios. Spelthorne has a population of approximately 90,000, covering 21 square miles (13,880 acres). The major centres of population are Ashford, Shepperton, Stanwell, Sunbury and Staines, with no physical boundaries between them. There is very great pressure for development, both commercial and residential, but the physical nature of the Borough is such that where land is not in the urban areas it is either long established green belt or covered by water (there are extensive reservoirs) so all development takes place on brown-field or windfall sites, and the Council ensures a careful balance between the need for different types of development and safeguarding a sustainable environment. Figure 1. Location Map of Spelthorne The Borough has a history of positive and stable political and managerial leadership, and takes a leading role in improving the quality of life for people who live and work in the Borough. Much of this work in now under-pinned by Spelthorne's Community Plan. This sets out the vision for Spelthorne and how it will be achieved. Spelthorne's Community Plan The future aims of Spelthorne are now reflected in the Community Strategy for Spelthorne which has recently been produced by the Local Strategic Partnership. This strategy, with its vision, key themes and action areas, will now underpin all the Council's own strategies and activities, including its housing strategies, and be the driver for individual service plans. The process of producing a Community Plan started with a community visioning day, organised by the Council, in February 2001. This resulted in agreement of a shared vision for Spelthorne in 10 years time as ''A place where people are fully engaged and are both respected and respectful, promoting an environment that is healthy, safe, inclusive, prosperous and sustainable''''A place where people are fully engaged and are both respected and respectful, promoting an environment that is healthy, safe, inclusive, prosperous and sustainable'' The Local Strategic Partnership A Local Strategic Partnership which consists of local organisations from the public, voluntary, business and community sectors considered the draft strategy at its Assembly meeting on the 15th May 2002. This event was attended by nearly 70 people from over 50 organisations operating in Spelthorne. As part of the process, the draft Strategy has also been considered by focus groups drawn from the Spelthorne Residents Panel and feedback from these groups has been included in the discussion of the draft Strategy. The strategy was adopted by this Council on the 25th July 2002. A Ten-Year Vision

The LSP agreed six key aims in helping achiveing the ten-year vision
Have a sustainable economy providing employment that is attractive to local people and based on the unique resources of Spelthorne.
Be a community where everyone can communicate, learn and achieve together.
Be a place where people choose to live and work, providing an attractive and safe environment for children to grow up.
Be serviced by a transport system that provides real choices, is safe and reliable and which supports both the environment and the economy.
Be somewhere where young people are valued and play an active part.
Be a place where people feel valued and have a sense of belonging and pride.

The Community Plan is divided into ten action areas, as a way of achieving the above aims. Each action area identifies a lead partner to co-ordinate the action necessary to achieve the targets. This is the Council for particular action areas. Many of the targets are taken from the current plans and strategies of the partner organisations (e.g. the Council's Housing Strategy, Leisure and Culture Strategy and Local Plan, the Spelthorne Crime and Disorder Reduction Strategy, HiMP, NHS plans, Surrey County Council's Community Care Plan etc.). In future, as these plans and strategies are reviewed and updated by the various partners, they will be aligned to wards the achievement of the ten-year vision. The Council is the lead partner on the action areas to make Spelthorne 'an inclusive society' and 'a place to live, work and play'. Some of the medium term targets from these are particularly relevant to our housing strategy such as to:

Assist disabled people to remain in their own homes
Tackle areas of disadvantage in the borough
Take action to increase the affordable housing options available for key workers
Increase the supply of affordable housing in the Borough to meet housing need

The priorities and actions in this housing strategy are therefore for the first time set in the context of supporting a vision for Spelthorne which has been agreed by all the public, voluntary, business and community sectors in the Borough, who will all be working to the same vision. A Corporate Approach The Council has always had a strong corporate focus, with integrated working between different departments and a culture of positive performance management and innovation. If anything, this has increased over the last six years since the transfer of housing stock in early 1996. Since well before any statutory requirement for a best value performance plan the Council has been setting itself and publishing corporate targets, with clear timescales, for all areas of its activities. This year, for the first time, these have been set as medium and short term targets to align with the emerging Community Strategy. The Improvement and Development Agency, following its review of the Council in Spring 2000, recognised the Council as having a history of well-managed and effective performance management systems. The Council was the first district council to adopt shadow executive arrangements in December 1998. The Council formally adopted executive arrangements under the Local Government Act 2000 from September 2001. Members have been closely involved in producing this strategy, including through a seminar to discuss the key findings from and issues raised by the housing needs and stock condition survey and meetings to address the issues raised by the best value review of the housing service. Consultation One of the Council's key priorities is to be in touch with the needs and priorities of the people of Spelthorne. To this end we adopted four principles of consultation:

To commit to full and open consultation with all sections of the community.
To select methods of consultation that are appropriate to the issues under consideration and the section of the community
To report back the results of any consultation undertaken to inform the decisions it has to make
To use the results of any consultation undertaken to inform the decisions it has to make.

We have carried out considerable consultation focussing on housing issues over the last year as part of the Best Value review of housing. This involved surveys of people we had nominated to accommodation, people on the housing register, those that the Council accepted as homeless and also those in bed and breakfast and other temporary accommodation. We also consulted housing associations in the Borough and housing developers. We also specifically sought the views of all tenants of properties transferred in 1996 on whether the Council had delivered on its promises and on the quality of the service they were currently receiving. We have sought views from local employers including schools, the police and health authority. We have held seminars on key aspects of newly adopted policy - such as key workers and, of course, we have had a housing needs and stock condition survey carried out. All the information from these consultations and surveys inform and shape this strategy. Best Value The Council has always accepted the need for continuous improvement and fully embraced the concept of Best Value, with a formal strategy adopted by the Council 3 years ago. We have been involved in the LSVT South East Benchmarking Club and participated in a local peer review on the housing service. The peer review simulated the housing inspection process in order to highlight areas for improvement. This work has given us opportunities to see how we compare against others and to look for best practice. Our Best Value Review of housing services has just been completed and this together with the housing needs survey has raised a number of fundamental issues about what our priorities and strategy should be now, 6 years on from LSVT. As part of the process a challenge group was set up, which included the use of a 'critical friend', and representation from the Citizens Advice Bureau and Rentstart. The outcome of this review is reflected in this strategy and the improvement plan prepared as part of the review. Now the review has been completed, the appropriate overview and scrutiny committee will monitor progress on the action plan on an annual basis. Linking with National Priorities The Government has stated it wishes to strengthen the strategic role for local authorities across all housing in their areas, including both the public and private sectors. The Government also aims to support sustainable home ownership. The Council very much supports these goals and is currently working to improve the sustainability of owner-occupation within the stock, while also ensuring there will be on-going opportunities for people to access owner-occupation locally, through low cost home ownership options. The Government has also set out its measures to raise the standards of private rented housing, encourage new investment and tackle problems at the bottom end of the sector. The Council is committed to ensuring all households have access to a decent home. Spelthorne Council has recently carried out a stock condition survey of properties in the Borough and is working with landlords in the private sector to raise standards. The Government has also set a goal to bring all social housing up to a decent standard by 2010 and tackle fuel poverty among social housing tenants. Significant progress has already been made in bringing social homes up to a decent standard - as the investment opportunities generated from stock transfer has ensured that all former council dwellings have now benefited from central heating, new windows and improved insulation. We are also developing our approach towards tackling fuel poverty, and have appended our fuel poverty strategy to the back of this strategy document. Measures to deliver new affordable housing in line with local needs are also now in place, while reforms to our lettings policies to promote a more customer-focused approach will be considered within the planned review of allocations. Regional and local priorities The South East Regional Housing Statement 2002 - 2005 identifies a number of drivers for change, all of which are relevant to Spelthorne and Surrey generally. The Council fully supports that the number one regional priority is the production of new affordable homes. The Council's priority therefore will be to increase the size of our housing programme by increasing property acquisitions to 100 per year and funding new developments on sites brought forward under the planning system via planning (Section 106) agreements. In addition, the Council has adopted an Empty Homes Strategy designed to assist owners in bringing property back into use. A target has been set for 10 units in the first year. The needs of key workers and their inability to meet their own needs from the market are acknowledged to be a serious problem across Surrey. The Council has now adopted a Key Worker Housing Strategy in order to help promote our goal of developing sustainable communities. Although homelessness in Spelthorne is not as great a problem as in neighbouring London Boroughs, diminishing new build opportunities a small private rented market, and the reducing number of re-lets, mean fluctuations in demand put increased reliance of the use of bed and breakfast accommodation. The Council is giving the highest priority to improving performance in this area, in recognition that families that spend long periods in bed and breakfast can't begin planning their lives until their housing needs have been met. Our Best Value Improvement Plan details a number of actions designed to reduce reliance on bed and breakfast with a view to meeting the Government's target of 6 weeks by 2004. Other measures planned include the review of allocation policies and procedures in light of the Homelessness Act. The Council is currently exploring with Social Services (their Commissioning Team) and Ashford and St Peters Hospital Trust the potential for assisting with delayed transfer of some elderly people from acute hospital wards. This will include discussions with Apex Housing Group on extending direct access to extra care sheltered housing schemes within the Borough where appropriate. Future work will also focus on the scope for reducing both admissions to, and delayed hospital discharge of older people. Our work is directed at ensuring people have access to a safe and decent home.

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