Dacorum council house tenants could be paid up to £5,000 to downsize

The aim is to encourage tenants who no longer require larger properties to move to smaller homes, freeing up space for households that need more bedrooms. No households will be forced to move.

Tenants willing to downsize will be able to receive either a one-off payment or have their moving costs covered, including movers, skips, re-carpeting, and reinstallation of large appliances.

The money received by those who choose a one-off payment will range from £1,000 for those moving from a two-bedroom to a one-bedroom home, up to £5,000 for those moving from a four-bedroom home into supported housing.

A council officer said those wanting to downsize will be “given a fairly beneficial points total to enable them to successfully bid, in the main, on other properties of their choosing”.

Explaining the proposed policy, the officer said: “We need to use our housing stock as effectively as we can and we recognise that we have a number of properties that our tenants currently occupy and, in many cases, are too big for their household needs.

“We have drafted the downsizing policy to review our current approach to supporting people to move to a property that meets their household needs.

“To be frank … the uptake of [the current policy] has been quite low over the past few years.

“We feel there is an opportunity to work with our tenants, who are open to moving to a smaller property, to be able to support them both financially and practically, to consider that as an option.

“We hope there will be a greater uptake. It is hard to gauge how popular it will be.”

The new scheme would replace the council’s ‘help to move’ policy, which has only been used by 84 tenants over the last four years.

It is hoped that the council’s existing budget will be sufficient to cover the costs of the new policy. The existing policy has come in under budget over the last three years.

At a council committee meeting on Thursday (6 June), Cllr Simy Dhyani, the council’s portfolio holder for housing, said consultation with residents suggested “a lot of people actually want the support more than the money”.

Natasha Beresford, strategic director for housing, said residents had made clear they wanted more support at what could be an “emotional” time for them.

She said: “It’s really important for us … to recognise that this is their home. It’s their home where they’ve had security of tenure for some time, they will have brought up families in that home and experienced life events.

“We have to be considerate in our approach in terms of supporting them to make that decision.

“While we recognise the pressure for us in terms of bringing back into use those larger family homes for families that need it, we need to have a balanced approach in terms of supporting the residents who are giving up their homes.”

Councillors supported the proposed policy, including Cllr Jan Maddern (Ind, Nash Mills), who said the change was “badly needed.”

She continued: “We’ve got so many people sitting in houses that are far too big for them because they’ve raised their families there, and then they’ve left home.

“I’ve had situations where an elderly resident rang me up and demanded a wet room – they were living in a four-bedroom home and would not entertain moving.

“We need to release these houses for families that really need this space.”

Cllr Gbola Adeleke (Con, Bovingdon, Flaunden and Chipperfield) said: “It’s a very generous and considerate policy which I think will help a lot of struggling tenants.”

The new downsizing policy has not yet been signed off.