Housing Policy Paper: Appointed as an EHP within Hopetown City Council

You should write a report of no more than 3,000 words. Your report should consider all the

information contained in the assignment; lecture material and information gathered through personal research.

Your report should concentrate upon the practice-based scenario below, which is designed to test,

consolidate and expand your housing-based knowledge.

You have been appointed as an EHP within Hopetown City Council, which is a local authority.

The ‘headline’ housing statistics for the area are:

Hopetown Overall Decent Homes Failure level is 44.9%. 

Hopetown is made up of 42.7% of vulnerable households (in receipt of a means tested benefit). 

Hopetown primary ethnicity is overwhelmingly “White British” at 88%. 

Hopetown has 38.3% of households in fuel poverty. 

 

Hopetown has high levels of Cat 1 failure for Excess Cold. A significant proportion of these are within

the private rented sector, the over 65’s and ‘vulnerable’ persons.

 

The largest proportions of dwellings are terraced (46.0%) and semi-detached (32.8%) the remainder

being flats, bungalows and detached houses.

 

The tenure of most properties is that they are owned (70%), with 50% of these being mortgaged.

 

The average SAP rating for the Hopetown is 43, with an average annual running cost at £1807 per

dwelling. 

 

In Hopetown 33.9% of the dwellings surveyed have loft insulation between 50mm and 100mm,

18.9% of properties were identified as having less than 50mm of loft insulation.

 

There are a total of 2201 Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO’s) 15 % of which are licensable. Hope

Town has 44 HMO’s that hold licences, suggesting that there are significant number of high risk

HMO’s operating without the required licence.

 

There are 2831 properties with disability adaptations needed.

 

There are 6011 severely overcrowded properties and 20123 severely under occupied properties in

Hopetown.

 

The long term empty property represents 5.2% of the private housing stock within Hopetown.

 

Private Rented Sector rents have increased by 10% over the last year, where conversely family

income has dropped by 6%. Homeless figures are rising at an alarming rate and social housing has a

waiting list of 6 years.

 

In the housing satisfaction survey; Heavy traffic, dog fouling and anti-social behaviour had the

highest problems or serious problems reported at 17.6%, 16.9% and 16.7% respectively.

 

You are tasked to write a report and action plan, which is to be evaluated and discussed at a full

council meeting.

 

You are to explain to the full council, using available statistics and any relevant national statistics as a

comparison e.g. English House Survey, how Hopetown City Council benchmarks. If Hopetown

performs below average, you are to make recommendations that in your opinion, will lead to

improvements in that area.

 

 THE ASSIGNMENT WILL BE MARKED AS A PERCENTAGE AND WILL BE ASSESSED ON THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:

1. Layout, flow and structure of the report using Harvard referencing. (10 Marks)

2. Your professional approach providing options and recommendations for improvement,

based upon the data contained within the assignment brief and through your own research

(50 Marks)

 3. Effectiveness of your report recommendations. (30 Marks)

4. Supporting your report through effective research (10 Marks)