How well does the council develop and evolve its strategies and plans?
The Housing Strategy (ref 6) and updates are developed through extensive consultation with partners including Registered Social Landlords, developers, tenants/leaseholders, residents, care providers, social services, the health and voluntary sector, and other interested parties. An annual Housing Forum is held to inform strategy development. A new housing strategy is currently being developed through multi-agency topic groups to ensure external input from the outset. The preparation of the current Local Plan (ref 7) involved several stages of participation by the relevant bodies, organisations and the public. More recently, the formulation of Supplementary Planning Guidance on both affordable housing (ref 8) and the release of housing sites (ref 9) has involved significant consultation with developers, agents and registered social landlords. In the case of Supporting People, consultative mechanisms are in place to help identify need and set clear housing priorities, with separate multi
