The Greenwich Affordable Housing Partnership

The Greenwich Affordable Housing Partnership was set up to continue and develop good working relationships, established with our joint commissioning partners and the Housing Corporation.

It also provides a forum to work with all registered social landlords (RSL) who currently own stock in the Royal Borough.

The partnership is designed to create an open and transparent relationship between the three parties to: 

• deliver the Greenwich Housing Strategy and establish the priorities of the Social Housing Investment Programme, linked to the wider south-east London sub-regional housing strategy and the London Housing Strategy produced by the Mayor of London
• deliver the Homes and Communities Agency's (HCA) National Affordable Housing Programme (NAHP) in Royal Greenwich
• maximise capital investment into the borough and the wider south-east London sub region, to improve the quantity and quality of affordable housing, including the associated economic, social and environmental requirements to regenerate neighbourhoods and create sustainable, good quality, mixed tenure communities
• maintain a list of local partners for developing schemes in the Royal Borough, including support for black, minority and ethnic communities and specialist partners.
• set joint standards for programme delivery, delivering Housing Plus initiatives and management of homes across all tenures, in line with good practice to achieve greater efficiency.

Organisation

The work of the partnership is delivered through a partnership review group (PRG) and topic-based groups as required.

Topics covered include:

• dealing with emergencies
• tackling anti-social behaviour
• developing homelessness protocol
• good public area management.

Quarterly meetings

The partnership review group meets quarterly and is chaired by an elected registered social landlord (RSL).

The forum is coordinated by the Housing Strategy and Enabling Unit.

Annual general meeting

An annual general meeting brings together the registered social landlord chief executives and regional directors in Royal Greenwich with the Royal Borough and the Homes and Communities Agency.

This meeting sets out the work programme for the year and elects the Chair, who also sits on the South East London Housing Partnership directors group to represent local registered social landlords.

Achievements

The partnership has consistently attracted high levels of investment into the Royal Borough to deliver mixed tenure developments, and refurbish or re-provide existing homes.

Since 2002, nearly £500 million has been invested by the Housing and Communities Agency in affordable housing, delivering over 7,000 new or refurbished registered social landlord homes.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich has been awarded Beacon Status for our affordable housing (2005 to 2006) and Homes for the Future (2009 to 2010) themes, by the government's Local Government Improvement and Development agency.

These are programmes through which the Royal Borough has shared good practice in the delivery of new homes and mixed communities with other local authorities and organisations across the country.

Good practice

The partnership has contributed towards the Royal Borough's Best Value Review of buy to let (2007 to 2008).

This review looked at how to improve the management of mixed tenure developments in the borough.

We have worked together with registered social landlords to promote good practice, including the signing of a homelessness prevention protocol in 2007.

This protocol now links into the Royal Borough's approach to tackling worklessness, particularly via the enhanced housing options service.

Further information

For more information on our work with registered social landlords, or on affordable housing and other housing information, please contact us.