Housing Allocations Scheme Consultation

The Housing Allocations scheme sets out how social housing (Council and Housing Association homes) within the borough is allocated. The current scheme was adopted in 2017 and needs to be updated. This is to reflect changes to legislation since it was last approved, as well as statutory guidance and local need. The demand for social housing in Runnymede is greater than the number of homes available, so we must ensure that this valuable resource is allocated to those with the greatest housing need.

Proposed Changes

In summary we are proposing to make changes to the scheme by:

• Increasing the criteria by which someone working in the borough but not living in Runnymede can go on the Housing Register from 12 months to 3 years

• Change the qualification for retirement housing so that applicants who cannot meet the local connection criteria are able to join if they have a family member in the borough who does meet the local connection criteria

• Add separated spouses of armed forces to local connection exemptions and priority banding

• Review the financial limits for households joining the Housing Register

• Simplify the banding structure from A, B, C1, C2, D1, D2 to A, B, C, D, E

• Update the banding to reflect local need

• Exclude applicants from joining the Housing Register if they have no identified housing need

• Reduce the number of reasonable offers from two to one for all applicants

• Introduce a requirement for all households to bid for a property within a reasonable period or the system will place bids automatically

• Reduce the review procedure from a two stage review process to a one stage review and increase the time for completing reviews from 10 working days to 56 days.

This is summarised in the consultation proposed changes document found here Housing Allocations Scheme Consultation 2021 [220.47KB]. We recommend you read the proposed changes before you take part in the consultation.

The Consultation

Please complete the consultation questionnaire here. This shouldn't take more than 15 minutes

We value your feedback on the proposed changes. Responses will help shape the final proposals, which will then be presented to the Housing Committee to agree the final details of the scheme before it is adopted.