Decision details

1. Guidance was issued by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 18^th December 2004 to improve access to social housing for members of the Armed Forces.  Improving access to social housing for members of the Armed Forces - GOV.UK.  Local housing authorities are required to have regard to this guidance when exercising their allocation functions under Part 6 of the 1996 Act.

2. The guidance updates which members of the armed forces are exempt from local connection criteria.  It removes the previous requirement for the applicant to have served in the armed forces within five years of the date of their application for housing.

3. To comply with this change, the wording in Section 3.4 of the Lettings Policy must be changed from:

‘The applicant is serving in the regular forces or who has served in the regular forces within five years of the date of their application for an allocation of housing under Part 6 of the 1996 Act’  

to ‘The applicant is currently serving or has served in the Regular Armed Forces.’

4.     The Lettings Policy is already compliant with the other requirements and recommendations set out in the guidance.

To approve the new wording on local connection criteria as set out in Section 3 above.

To comply with updated guidance issued by the Secretary of State on 18^th December 2024.

Option: To not update the policy

Rejected to comply with the updated guidance issues by the Secretary of State on 18th December 2024.