£1.35million fund proposed for 'enforcement and street cleaning' to help clear up Sunderland city centre

Draft spending plans for next year (2020/21) have allocated an extra £800,000 to tackle problem homes, particularly in the private rented sector and improve Wearside’s ‘street scene’.

If approved by council bosses, it would mean a pot worth a total £1.35million would be available for ‘enforcement and street cleaning’, although opposition leaders have asked for more detail on what this could mean in practice.

Conservative councillor Bob Francis said: “We have a lot of absentee landlords owning property in the city centre and some of it is in a very poor state, with vegetation growing out of it and all sorts.

“Are we going to get these people over a barrel? What levers have we got over these people?”

Coun Francis was speaking at a meeting of the city council’s Scrutiny Co-ordinating Committee.

According to a report for the panel on the council’s spending proposals for next year, more than a quarter of Sunderland’s housing stock is privately rented and a significant proportion of this is thought to be ‘currently presenting hazards to tenants’.

Maintaining housing standards is a council responsibility and an extra £400,000 is expected to be put towards a ‘Private Rented Housing Enforcement Policy’.

A further £400,000 will go to ‘address and improve the street scene’ to ‘support investment in the City Centre’.

“£400,000 has been identified in the revenue budget for [enforcement],” said Jon Ritchie, the city council’s executive director of corporate services.

“But some enforcement has to go through certain stages to get licences or public space protection orders.

“Part of the drive to deliver the City Plan is for people to take more pride in the city and where engagement doesn’t work through financial penalties.

“Ideally, what we want is for houses to be made safe, if it’s a business property sometimes the council has to step in and spend if the owner can’t or won’t.”