Nearly £12m Available For Hastings Council To Help Tackle Temporary Accommodation Crisis

A multi-million pound programme to tackle a ‘temporary accommodation crisis’ has been given the go ahead by Hastings councillors. 

On Wednesday (February 8), Hastings Borough Council unanimously approved plans to borrow up to £11.8m, which the authority will use to buy up to 50 homes for use as short term emergency housing.

The council has a statutory duty to provide this accommodation when residents become homeless and the programme is intended to offset the rapidly increasing costs of renting from the private sector — something which has placed considerable pressure on the council’s budgets in recent years. 

Cllr Maya Evans, Labour cabinet member for housing and community development, said:

“This report is a really bold step by the council, who are in a corner in terms of what are we going to do about this temporary accommodation crisis.”

She added:

“This is about providing places within our town for some of the most economically-deprived people living in Hastings at the moment.

“It is not people who are sleeping rough, it is ordinary families who now cannot keep up with the cost of living crisis who can’t afford the unaffordable rents that this town is now facing.”

The number of households living in temporary accommodation in Hastings has significantly increased over the past three years. The latest figures (from December 2022) show that there were nearly 500 Hastings households living in temporary accommodation. 

At the same time, the council’s costs in providing temporary accommodation have also sharply increased.  

In 2019/20, the council’s net temporary accommodation costs came to £731,706, a figure which was already significantly higher than in years past. But, by 2021/22 this cost had reached £2,605,324 — a 256 per cent increase in two years. 

By the end of this financial year (2022/23), the council expects its costs to reach £3,892,758, a figure which would amount to a 432 per cent increase since 2019/20.

The programme is primarily intended to reduce the council’s outgoings, something it is expected to do despite new costs for borrowing and building maintenance. Cllr Evans put this saving at around £200,000 per annum once all 50 properties had been purchased. 

On top of this, the programme is also hoped to improve the quality of the temporary housing available to residents.

The programme (which will include a cross-party review group) received unanimous support from councillors, although there were some criticisms of its funding and scope.

Cllr John Rankin (Con) said:

“The only caveat I’ve got is how we fund it. I don’t think it is wise to go out and borrow money to fund this. 

“What I would propose is that we fund this from commercial property disposals, because we don’t actually know which commercial properties make money at the moment and which don’t. 

“I would get that asset review done quickly, dispose of those properties which are losing us money and roll it into this, which we should have been doing 10 years ago.”

Cllr Rankin went on to say that he would like to significantly increase the amount of homes to be bought by the council. He also criticised the Labour group for not pursuing property purchases sooner, saying he had first raised the idea back in 2016.