Public consultation on new housing strategy for the city

Senior Exeter City Council housing officers will be at St Steven’s Church, High Street from 10.30am to 3.00pm on Thursday 7th February 2013 for an informal discussion on what the housing priorities for the city should be and how these can be achieved.

Housing is one of the top priorities for Exeter City Council and they want to make sure that they are meeting the housing needs of the people in the community today and use housing as a driver for the economic growth and prosperity of the City.  

Exeter has a lot to be proud of:

• A strong track record on new development, with more than three times more affordable houses built over the last few years than the national average and a healthy future pipeline
• Recognition by DCLG as regional lead on housing advice and homelessness services
• Consistently high levels of satisfaction with our landlord services
• Half as many empty properties as in comparable areas.

Cllr Rob Hannaford, Lead Councilor for Housing and Community Involvement said: “Delivering prosperity and meeting local housing needs against a background of reductions in public spending will be a challenge. And there are tough decisions to be made in terms of what housing services in the City will look like in the next few years. We want to know what the people of the City think about how they could use the City’s social housing stock and their policies and planning powers to effect a step change in the housing market in Exeter.”  

New thinking and approaches are needed to resolve local and national housing issues. The views of the City’s residents gathered during this event will be used to inform the new Housing Strategy for the City.  

An online survey is also available at www.exeter.gov.uk/respond for people to give their views on what they think the priorities for housing in Exeter should be for the future.