In advance of this evening's PACT meeting we have asked for a summary of recent developments from a housing perspective. We have published the housing officer's response in full below:
Officers from the council attended the February PACT meeting to hear the residents’ concerns. From there an action plan was drafted to address the issues along with a summary ‘You said – We did’ document. Both documents were issued and discussed with attendees of the March PACT meeting.
Issues raised at PACT meetings and actions to date from the council’s perspective:
· Numbers 28 & 66
Tenth Street and the issues the tenants were causing. Both properties are
private rented properties and the private sector initiatives team worked with
the landlords and helped them to legally end the tenancies. The landlord is to
ensure future tenants are vetted in order to make an informed decision of
whether to accommodate them or not.
· Untidy yards –
rubbish in yards and streets. Operation Spruce up was undertaken, which
addressed these issues. In addition to this street cleansing was undertaken.
The council will continue pursue ongoing and new issues through the CPW/CPN
process where people do not comply.
· Drugs and drug use –
residents are fearful of going to the shops on an evening due to druggies in
the street. A review was carried out relating to drug dealers and drug users
and work will continue with the substance misuse teams to address the issues
including enforcement where offences are identified.
· Contact numbers /
access to reporting issues – residents advised that they don’t know where to
ring to report things. A leaflet has been produced and distributed.
Weekly surgeries were
arranged to give residents the opportunity to meet staff from police and DCC
and raise any issues they have. After holding two surgeries with nobody
attending it was decided that surgeries were probably not the forum residents
really required. If the residents feel this is something they would require in
the future they can be resurrected at any time.
· Residents are
unhappy with private landlords housing people from outside of the area.
Unfortunately the council cannot tell a landlord who they can and cannot house.
We can however, encourage landlords to work with us and become accredited which
gives them access to the councils tenant referencing scheme.
With
regards to selective licensing the council is currently considering the future
of selective licensing within the county as many data sets across the spectrum
of intelligence for individual areas needs to be assessed.
Private sector housing
The current situation with the
private rented sector in Blackhall is since April 2017 we have received 22
complaints for the area, of these 11 were for empty homes and 11 related to
tenancy issues. All were dealt with immediately as they were received and all
landlords engaged with us. As you are aware a landlord cannot just ‘get a
tenant out’ of their property, as residents have called for in some instances,
there is a legal process to follow or a landlord could face prosecution. We
work to advise the landlord of their legal obligations at all times. With the
high profile nature of some issues caused by a couple of tenants the private
sector initiatives officer worked very closely with the landlord and
policing colleagues to resolve the issues that had been caused.
