Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to take steps to implement the recommendations of the 2016 Casey Review.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Responding to the Casey Review the Government published the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper in March 2018, inviting views on our vision for building strong integrated communities where people - whatever their background - live, work, learn and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities
In February 2019, the Integrated Communities Action Plan was published alongside the Government's response to the consultation on the Green Paper. The Action Plan built upon the proposals set out in the Green Paper to create socially and economically stronger, more confident and integrated communities - supporting people to progress and make the most of the opportunities of living in the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the impact on residents of living on an unadopted road.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Where a road is not adopted by the local authority the responsibility for maintaining the road rests with third parties, which are usually the owners of properties that front onto it.
Estate rentcharges are one way that residents cover the unadopted road’s maintenance. However, it is not appropriate that these homeowners have limited rights to challenge these costs. The Government is committed to protecting homeowners from abuse and poor service. That is why the Government intends to legislate to ensure that the charges that resident freeholders pay towards the maintenance of communal areas, including unadopted roads, are fairer and more transparent.
To this effect, we will give freeholders on private and mixed tenure estates equivalent rights to leaseholders to challenge the reasonableness of estate rentcharges, as well as a right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal to appoint a new manager to manage the provision of services.
In addition, we will ensure that where a freeholder pays a rentcharge, the rentcharge owner is not able to take possession or grant a lease on the property where the rentcharge remains unpaid for a short period of time. We will translate these measures into law when parliamentary time allows.
We will also consider the option of introducing a Right to Manage for residential freeholders once we have considered the Law Commission's report and recommendations on changes to the Right to Manage for leaseholders.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of residential developments taking place on green belt land.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
This Government has a manifesto commitment to protect and enhance the Green Belt. Our National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that a local authority can take development land out of Green Belt only in exceptional circumstances, through the local plan process, and only if it can demonstrate that it has explored all other reasonable options.
To reduce pressures on Green Belt land, the Government is investing significant amounts in re-using and regenerating brownfield sites. We have set up the £4.35 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund; the £4.95 billion Home Building Fund; the £400 million Brownfield Housing Fund; and the £75 million Brownfield Land Release Fund. At Autumn Budget 2021 the Chancellor announced a further £300 million of grant funding for Mayoral Combined Authorities and local authorities to unlock smaller brownfield sites.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support disabled people living in social housing to obtain the home adaptations necessary to their wellbeing.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Since 2010, Government has invested over £4 billion into the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) to contribute towards the cost of home adaptations for eligible disabled people of all ages and tenures, including those living in social housing, so they can live independently and safely.
The Government will commit a further £573 million for the DFG each year between 2022-23 to 2024-5. The Adult Social Care White Paper, People at the Heart of Care, also confirmed that we are taking steps to reform the DFG to ensure the grant benefits more people who need home adaptations, including people living in social housing. Government will be consulting on these reforms in 2022.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has received an application from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council to the UK Community Renewal Fund.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The lead authority, in this case Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA), was responsible for submitting bids to the UK Community Renewal Fund. LCRCA invited bids from a range of project applicants, appraised and prioritised projects and submitted a shortlist to UK Government which selected projects based on the published assessment criteria.
We have checked and no bids were submitted for the UK Community Renewal Fund from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council by LCRCA.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of extending the covid-19 Parking Pass to healthcare support staff.
Answered by Luke Hall
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave to PQ16235 on 21 June 2021.