Briefings and responses

The LGA believes the Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing (EEIS+) proposal could form the basis of a useful backup to the requirement for Responsible Persons to identify residents who are unable to self-evacuate and make every reasonable adjustment to ensure that they can do so, through the provision of a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan.

We will want to work with the Government and the Regulator to ensure that there is a proportionate, risk-based approach to inspection, as well as urgent clarity on how this will be delivered and funded.

We broadly support measures that streamline and modernise the CPO process including flexibility surrounding the three-year time-limit in which a CPO can be used.

This briefing summarises the housing and planning proposals of most relevance and significance to local government. It also provides the LGA’s initial reaction to the proposals along with our policy messages, which may necessarily evolve as discussions on the proposals continue.

The LGA has called on the Government to provide councils with the powers and tools to reverse the chronic shortage of social housing, including giving councils powers to build 100,000 high-quality, climate-friendly social homes a year.

As the consultation notes, rough sleeping and begging can often be conflated, and the overlap between them is complex.

The LGA has a set of core asks around the Building Safety Bill. These are addressed in order of priority.

The LGA has four core asks around the Building Safety Bill.

Delivery of the new building safety regime is dependent on council building control and the fire service. The funding to achieve the necessary increase in skills and capacity has not yet been agreed and we are concerned that it may be inadequate. The LGA asks that new funding is administered to councils and fire services to deliver this new work.

No leaseholder should have to pay the costs of making their homes safe and the Secretary of State’s threat to use the legal system to ensure developers meet their responsibilities to leaseholders is a positive step in the right direction. However, leaseholders are not the only innocent victims of the construction industry’s failure to build safe homes.