Colchester Labour Party

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Right decision on sheltered housing

Cllr Tim Young, Labour Cabinet Member for Housing, writes exclusively for ColchesterLabour.com on the future of Joyce Brooks House, Abbeygate House and Sheltered Housing in Colchester.

"There has been a lot of misinformation being peddled about Colchester Council’s decision to sell two of its sheltered schemes namely Abbeygate House and Joyce Brooks House. I have copped a lot of the flak as Portfolio Holder for Housing & Community Safety but I strongly believe it is the right decision. When we joined the council’s administration in 2008 there was a lot that needed putting right after a period of disastrous Tory rule.

I knew, from previous experience, that the state of Colchester’s sheltered housing scemes needed looking at so, under the auspices of Cllr Oxford (Highwoods Independent) and Cllr Smith (LibDem) a review was set up. The results of this review were published last year after I’d been appointed as Portfolio Holder for Housing. The officers who conducted the review had done a thorough, comprehensive and professional job. They had consulted on a new ‘Colchester standard’ for sheltered accommodation with tenants through the Sheltered Housing Tenants’ Forum and through a survey of local people in their 40s and 50s – effectively the next generation of sheltered residents. They were clearly all of the same opinion that small bedsits with shared bathroom facilities were not acceptable conditions for older people in the 21^st century.

It was clear that refurbishment work was needed on some schemes to bring them up to this standard whereas more radical solutions may be needed for others but there were two (Joyce Brooks and Abbeygate) that required so much work that it was not economically viable or cost-effective to do anything but dispose of them to gain a capital receipt that could be ploughed back into modernising and improving the rest of the sheltered stock. JBH and AH don’t have lifts, they would not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and there were other deficiencies with regards to structure and public utilities.  The results of the review were circulated amongst councillors and Colchester Borough Homes (CBH) Board Members. Meetings were held, discussions had and opportunities for questions given. There was a broad consensus that the Review’s recommendations were the right way forward and these were put to all sheltered tenants in September 2011 before the Cabinet made a decision in October. There were nearly 100 responses – many of the tenants at JBH and AH wrote in with their concerns but, taking the overall picture into account, the Cabinet decided (with no votes against) to endorse the Review’s recommendations. 

We put in support for the tenants of JBH and AH and many have engaged with the excellent CBH officers to find new homes in other sheltered schemes. Sadly some bandwagon-jumpers have misinformed some JBH residents about the council’s intentions and I condemn their attempts to exploit elderly tenants for their own purposes. It is interesting that residents at Abbeygate House (and some at JBH) have resisted the voices of doom and are finding happiness in their new homes.

All I want to do is improve and modernise sheltered accommodation in Colchester as I don’t believe that small bedsits with shared bathroom facilities are acceptable in 2012 for older people. This is borne out by the fact that demand for our sheltered stock is falling not rising. In December 2011 it took under 20 days for CBH to re-let a property for ‘general needs’ (ie an ordinary house, flat or bungalow that can be allocated to anyone on the Housing Needs Register) but it took 71 days to re-let a sheltered property. The reason for this is that older people do not want to give up a house that may be too big for them and which they can’t cope with any longer for a small bedsit where there may have to share a bathroom with up to half a dozen others…who would?!  On top of that the council is losing rental income for an average of 71 days – something that other rent payers and the Audit Commission would not be too happy about.

I am certain that we are doing the right thing. After all this Colchester will have sheltered accommodation that we can be proud of and that people want to live in. When people look back they will say – yes, it was a tough decision but a right one and they handled the situation with great care and sensitivity and with their principles intact."