Serving Communities Sample Clauses

Serving Communities. The provision of decent places to live and of cleaner and safer public spaces for people to enjoy and to mix and integrate will be an important component in delivering the overall outcome of strong and safe communities. The local housing strategy seeks to provide a balanced housing market to ensure good quality, well managed, safe homes are provided. Our services ensure effective action is taken to prevent homelessness and disrepair in the private sector, but major challenges are now arising due to overcrowding in the private sector, intensified local concentrations of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and the new inspection regime through the Housing, Health and Safety Rating system. Peterborough faces the challenge of providing a stream of affordable homes offering a range of tenure opportunities and ensuring that the number of unfit dwellings and non-decent properties in the Private Sector are minimised and meet the decent homes standard. Our priorities are: • Improving existing housing as well as building new homes. • Offering a range of tenure opportunities. • Reducing the number of unfit dwellings and non-decent properties in the private sector. • Working with community and voluntary groups to encourage greater participation in caring for local environments. • Managing housing conditions and community tensions in areas where HMOs are concentrated. • Increasing household income through joint working with Job Centre Plus, advice services and maximising benefit provision. • Encouraging take-up of benefits entitlement (a key factor in perpetuating poor standards of living amongst older people, shown to be a group that fail, in large numbers, to take up benefits to which they are entitled). • Providing good education and lifelong learning opportunities will be vital if we are to improve the quality of life and career opportunities for all those who live and work in Peterborough. The GPP will explore possibilities for increasingly flexible and proactive employment policies in relation to recruitment and retirement. The priorities in this block will be supported by the following key partners: Cambridgeshire Constabulary, Greater Peterborough Primary Care Partnership, National Probation Service, HMP Peterborough, Cambs Fire and Rescue Service, Peterborough Race Equality Council, Job Centre Plus and other members of the Community Safety Partnership. Block 2 Freedom and Flexibilities Status Specific freedoms and flexibilities have been requested to support ...