Housing, planning and development control

Contents

Housing Services

• Derby Homes
• Repairs
• Paying your rent
• Homelessness advice
• Community rooms

Planning and Development Control Services

• Local land charges - personal search service
• Local land charges - land search service
• Advice for Development Control customers

Derby Homes

In response to the government's guidance on social distancing, Derby Homes will be implementing the following with effect from 5pm on Thursday 19th March 2020:

• All Derby Homes housing offices will close. This includes Allenton, Stockbrook Street, and Sussex Circus Housing Offices.
• Derby Homes staff are still working, and can be contacted by email or telephone 01332 888777.
• Priority will be given to those who are vulnerable and in need of most support.
• There will also be a temporary change to how we conduct sign-ups for new tenants. 

Most of the sign-up process will be carried out over the phone and should take around 40 minutes. The physical signing of the tenancy agreement will still be carried out in person, but will be adapted to follow social distancing guidance. This should take just five minutes and will take place at our Stockbrook Street Office.

Applicants will be given specific instruction on how this will take place.

Repairs

Staying alert and safe (social distancing) measures

Customers will be contacted in advance where we need to physically visit or meet to carry out a service. We will ensure appropriate measures are in place to keep everyone safe.

We will contact you before any pre-arranged appointments. If we are unable to make contact, we may not be able to continue with an appointment at the arranged time.

Repairs and Maintenance

Repairs and maintenance are operating as normal, but please be aware that appointments may take longer than usual as we work through the backlog of repairs and take extra time during appointments to reduce any risks.

All non-essential repairs should be reported via MyAccount or through email at ContactUs@derbyhomes.org. Please only contact us by phone for emergency repairs or if you are unable to report repairs online.

All repair visits will follow COVID-secure guidelines. We will contact you beforehand to check whether any member of your household has symptoms or if there are any other risks or concerns.

We will take all reasonable precautions to work safely whilst we are in your home. This may include:

• Cleaning the areas we work in before we start and when we finish
• Wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), where appropriate
• Asking you to stay in another room whilst we carry out our work

Paying your rent

If you are concerned about paying your rent due to reduced income, please contact our Income Team on 01332 888777 (option 3) who will be able to advise on any help that is available.

Homelessness advice

We will continue to support people who find themselves homeless or at threat of becoming homeless. In the first instance, please telephone us on 01332 888777 (option 5) to make an appointment to speak with one of our team.

Community rooms

All of the 22 community rooms we manage across the city are now temporarily closed for externally booked activities and resident use, to encourage social distancing.

For more information, please visit the Derby Homes website, or find them on social media (Facebook and Twitter).

Local land charges - personal search service

We have made some important changes to our personal search service with immediate effect. This is for a temporary period to enable all of our customers and staff to stay safe and protected during the current coronavirus pandemic.

• The personal search appointment system requiring you to attend the Council House is suspended until further notice.
• We will email the Local Land Charges Register extract to customers.
• For appointments that we have booked in already we will aim to email you with the information on the day of the scheduled appointment, however, if this is not possible, we will let you have the information as soon as it is available.
• For new personal search requests we will only accept these by email until further notice. Requests should be emailed to landcharges@derby.gov.uk with the search address and appropriate plan and we will let you know the date of the next available slot you are booked in to.
• The emergency appointment slots will be withdrawn during this period.

Please be advised that, whilst we will do our best to return information to customers on the date of the appointment, due to the current situation we cannot guarantee return of search information by a particular date as the provision of search services is subject to staff, resource and IT availability.

We are sorry but we are temporarily unable to provide access to historical plotting sheets and decision notices at this time. We are also unable to provide access to view records under EIR during this temporary period.

If you require us to compile data for CON29 questions, please email landcharges@derby.gov.uk with details of your request, making the appropriate payment online

• Choose 'other payments'.
• From categories select 'Planning and Land Charges'.
• Scroll down and select 'Local Land Charges Additional Questions'.
• Checkout and make payment.

Your patience and understanding during this unprecedented and difficult time is appreciated.

Local land charges - land search service

We would like to reassure all property search customers that we aim to provide as near normal service as possible at this difficult and uncertain time.

We can accept online request and payment for our search products however we are currently unable to accept postal searches or cheques at this time.

Our search turnaround time, as at Wednesday 25th March 2020, was approximately 13 working days. Searches are worked on in the order that they are received.

All of our search responses are answered in line with the Law Society's LLC1 and Con29 forms. We are also able to answer optional enquiries and solicitors own questions. For further information and prices, please email landcharges@derby.gov.uk.

Advice for Development Control customers

All customers should be aware that the Development Control (Planning) Team continues to operate but in a slightly different manner.  The team is working remotely and remains committed to its completion of the various functions to enable applications to be registered, validated, consulted upon, assessed and dispatched in a timely manner.  Officers may seek assistance with additional information surrounding site visits and your-co-operation at this time is appreciated.

In terms of specific service issues please note:

1. Instead of phoning the team please direct all enquiries to the DC inbox DevelopmentControl@derby.gov.uk.  This inbox is monitored daily by various officers so enquiries are answered promptly.
2. During the current working arrangements our ‘duty’ appointments are only by telephone and they are without charge for householders.  Please e-mail the DC inbox with your contact details and you will be will be allocated a slot.
3. With regard to duty appointments our arrangements are changing to Wednesday's between 10.30 and 15.00 from 8th April 2020 onwards. This will, hopefully, provide a more accessible mid-week slot for customers to utilise.
4. In terms of fee payments please use the 'pay it' tool on the website if payment hasn't been made via the Planning Portal.  This will be the most secure method for making payments.
5. We are still accepting formal requests for pre-application advice but can only provide written responses as meetings and site visits aren't possible at the moment.
6. Our pre-application charges, which are available on our web-site, are currently under review and will be updated in the future to ensure that the service responds to the needs of all customers.

Your patience and co-operation is appreciated at this time and these messages will be updated if circumstances change.