Housing strategies
Housing Strategy 2020-26
Our vision is that everyone has a safe, stable and genuinely affordable home where they can live an independent and prosperous life. The new housing strategy 2020–26 outlines the strategic direction, key priorities and actions that will help us achieve this vision.
Our approach is grouped into five themes:
- delivering the homes that Lewisham needs
- preventing homelessness and meeting housing need
- improving the quality, standard and safety of housing
- supporting our residents to live safe, independent and active lives
- strengthening communities and embracing diversity
Responses to our consultation have helped us to further shape our proposals and action plans that fall under the above themes. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for us to reshape some of the ideas that were included in our draft strategy so that we can support people most in need.
We must also ensure that our work drives positive changes in promoting equality and fighting injustice, so much of which has been highlighted by the pandemic.
As well as ensuring our own policies, strategies and actions drive us towards our vision, we must call on central Government to help us address Lewisham’s housing needs. As part of this document we have included a number of key ‘asks’ of Government to support us in our work.
- download the Housing Strategy 2020-26
- download an easy read version of the Housing Strategy 2020-26
Homelessness strategy 2023-26
Our overarching vision is that is that everyone has a safe, secure and genuinely affordable home. For this to be a reality, we must work towards ensuring that no one becomes homeless in Lewisham.
The Housing Strategy 2020–26 outlines five key priorities for Lewisham. One of these priorities is ‘preventing homelessness and meeting housing need’ which outlines our overarching strategic approach to preventing homelessness.
This homelessness and rough sleeping strategy underpins our Housing Strategy. It provides more detail on how we will prevent homelessness and rough sleeping. It outlines how we, with our partners, will work with and support those who are at risk of, or experiencing homelessness.
The updated strategy is a response to a period of unprecedented change. Since the publication of the last strategy, we have transformed how we deliver many of our services for homeless households and people sleeping rough in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. While we have recovered from many of the immediate challenges presented by Covid, we now face many new challenges.
At the time of this strategy being launched, residents are finding it harder than ever to meet rising living costs, including higher rents, mortgage payments and cost of other living essentials. With much uncertainty still remaining around the longer-term impacts of the economic downturn, it's crucial that public services are prepared to support residents.
Our priorities for tackling homelessness in Lewisham are to:
- prevent homelessness at the earliest opportunity with the most appropriate level of support
- support people to access a stable and secure home
- support rough sleepers to enable access to services and accommodation
- strengthen partnership working
- read the full Homelessness Strategy
Resident Engagement Strategy 2025-28
This strategy sets out how we plan to strengthen engagement with residents who live in Lewisham Council managed homes. It will enable us to plan and deliver inclusive and comprehensive community and resident engagement, allowing us to improve a resident’s journey and help meet wider Lewisham Council objectives.
Implementing the strategy will ensure that resident’s voices are at the heart of the services we deliver. By working in partnership with other Council teams and stakeholders we want to build strong, inclusive communities and ensure that resident engagement is understood as everyone’s responsibility across housing and wider within Lewisham Council services.
The strategy focuses on three key strands of engagement, investment, and communication.
- Read the full Resident Engagement Strategy
- Read the consultation summary for the Resident Engagement Strategy.
Building Safety Resident Engagement Strategy
Building Safety is about managing and controlling risks that may result in the spread of fire or risks that could result in a structural failure. These risks are known as Building Safety risks and may pose a risk to the lives of anyone who either lives in or visits one of our high-rise residential buildings.
It is clear within the Building Safety Act that residents should be at the forefront of all decisions made within their buildings. With this in mind, this strategy has been designed to ensure that we are engaging meaningfully with our residents about their safety and the safety of their homes.
- Read the full Building Safety Resident Engagement Strategy
Housing Retrofit Strategy
As part of the Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan, the Housing Retrofit Strategy aims to reduce energy use and emissions, supporting Lewisham’s ambition for the borough to be net zero carbon by 2030. Alongside decarbonisation the programme will also deliver broader benefits, including enhanced housing quality, reduced exposure to energy price increases, better health and air quality, and opportunities for green jobs and skills.
- Read the full Housing Retrofit Strategy
Strategy development work
We are currently developing new strategies for:-
- Knowledge and Information Management
- Empty Homes
- Social Housing Tenures
See our Consultations and feedback page for further information