Latest news with #JanineHowarth
BBC News
24-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Swindon council says rough sleeper numbers have not increased
A team tasked with tackling rough sleeping in a town insists overall numbers of people sleeping on the streets have not gone Eddolls and Becky Davison, who work with rough sleepers in Swindon as part of the council's support team, said their last count showed around eight people sleeping rough on 9 June. According to the council, this was in line with figures from 2024, with rough sleepers counted a few times throughout the year. Swindon Borough councillor Janine Howarth, who is responsible for housing, said: "It's not got any worse - what you see some of the time is people who are actually begging on the street, they're not actually rough sleepers who need our help." Ms Howarth said this could lead to the public perception that numbers had increased."We do still work with these people but they may already have a house or a place to stay," she said."They will come out because of the situation they are in and they will beg for whatever reason."What we want people to do, instead of giving people on the street money, is to actually give it to places like The Haven or Booth House that actually deal with them." 'Build trust' It comes after government figures found rough sleeping in England went up by a fifth last year compared to 2023. Asked whether they saw the same number of rough sleepers each time they went out, Ms Eddolls and Ms Davison said "it varies" - often depending on things like the weather. They also said the rough sleepers they were trying to help were often dealing with "complex trauma".Ms Eddolls, who is the rough sleeper manager, said: "We'll come across somebody - not every time - and they're really receptive. "It might be their first night out and they're really keen for the support and they want us to tell them where to go and signpost them."Other times it takes a long time to build trust."She added: "They don't trust the people closest to them, let alone strangers, so we have to go out again and again and again before they can even build that relationship with us."Ms Davison, who also has personal experience of rough sleeping, said: "Sometimes that trust is broken and rebuilt over multiple times. "Some of the individuals we come across we've known for an awful long time."
BBC News
13-03-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Swindon Borough Council to spend £250m on improving housing
A council is set to spend £250m on improving its housing - despite just 1% of that being needed to bring its homes up to standard. Swindon Borough Council has set out its intention to spend the sum over the next five years in order to meet the government's Decent Homes Standard across 10,000 bedsits, houses and flats. But the same strategy document that said £250m was needed for wide ranging improvements also said that "over £2.56m" was required to repair all failing homes. Cabinet member for housing Janine Howarth said that bringing homes up to government standards was the "minimum" tenants should expect. "We want tenants in our 10,383 homes, 31 sheltered housing schemes and four supported housing schemes to live in high-quality housing," she said."That is why we are planning to invest £250m over the next five years in the maintenance and refurbishment of our stock."At a cabinet meeting she also explained that the funding would come "at no cost to services funded through council tax", and would instead be funded by rents paid to the council by tenants. Meanwhile, a possible first step towards hundreds of homes being built on a Swindon park has been set out, with housing social enterprise Places for People asking council planners if it would need to provide an environmental impact assessment for a prospective project. While a formal proposal has not yet been submitted, the query was an indication that the company was considering putting in a planning application for 300 houses on Marlborough Park. An earlier application in 2015 allowed up to 313 houses as well at 91 other flats or houses and 74 age-restricted housing units on the site and land to the for People already has planning permission to build 80 affordable homes – which is defined as available for rent at 80% of the market rate – to the north east of Marlborough Park, on a plot of land between Lowry way and Broome Manor well as the proposal for 313 houses on the site approved in outline in 2015, a scheme for more than 600 houses was approved in 2005, but has lapsed.
