Hard to let and easy to access properties

Tackling Studio Accommodation

Some of our accommodation - and a significant proportion of our sheltered housing - is studios that tend to be hard to let because potential tenants are no longer happy to accept homes without separate bedrooms. Two bungalow schemes have already had communal rooms constructed using hard-to-let studio properties, but this does not help to address the overall shortage of affordable accommodation in the District. As part of the development of our Elder Person Strategy in 2005/6 we will formulate a plan for making best use of studio accommodation to provide homes that people want to live in, learning from best practice in other authorities and begin a review of sheltered housing accommodation.