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WBC Cabinet Member for Citizen Services:
Subject to approval of planning permission, we approve a 10 year
(5yr+5yr) service contract with a private sector emergency
accommodation provider, with a total value of £7,780,776, to
acquire nomination rights to 44 units of 24 hour staffed emergency
accommodation for single people and delegate authority to the
Director for Housing and Communities to enter into a service
contract for the purpose of acquiring temporary accommodation.
 
ADC Leader: As this is essentially a Worthing
issue, I am happy to follow the WBC Cabinet Member for Citizen
Services’ lead in making this decision.

Reasons for the decision

WBC Cabinet Member for Citizen Services: To
enable the council to fulfil its statutory housing duties under
S188 and S193 of the Housing Act 1996.
 

Alternative options considered

Both WBC and ADC have commenced capital works
programmes to purchase and develop their own temporary
accommodation stock. So far three buildings have been developed to
create 38 self-contained flats in Worthing and one building in
Adur consisting of 6 self-contained
flats. Whilst this is an effective long term strategy to lower the
cost of temporary accommodation, it can take many months or years
to develop each site and therefore this in isolation is not
sufficient to keep up with current demand.
 
Other options include spot purchase of rooms
and flats, however this is very costly and unsustainable in the
medium to long term as well as not being suitable for the majority
of single person households due to level of need and risk that
requires staffing.
 
Doing nothing and continuing to use nightly
booked accommodation will see costs spiral and increased out of
area placements and is therefore not recommended.