Supplementary A - London Borough of Hillingdon

1. INTRODUCTION
Hillingdon receives many housing applications from people who want to be housed
every year. However, there are not enough properties to meet demand. Therefore, the
Council has a system for prioritising allocation of properties based on applicants housing
need. The rule of the prioritisation is known as the Council’s Allocation Policy which is
described in more detail in this booklet.
We want people to be able to choose the area and property they want to live in. We
also want our policies and procedures to be more open and transparent to all people.
This is why we have changed our allocation policy to a choice based lettings scheme.
Six London Boroughs, Hillingdon, Harrow, Ealing, Hounslow, Brent, Hammersmith and
Fulham have joined forces to promote a new way to help people find a new home. With
our partner housing associations named below, we are now giving people choice when
we let Council and Housing Association homes.
PCHA Housing Association
Catalyst Communities Housing Association
Paradigm Housing Group
Acton Housing Association
Notting Hill Housing Trust
Shepherds Bush Housing Association
Stadium Housing Association
Thames Valley Housing Association
Westway Housing Association
A company, LOCATA, has been formed to work with us as a central lettings agency to
advertise and match people to homes in this new and exciting way. There are
opportunities of cross-borough movement as one in every ten properties is made
available to Home-seekers (H) and existing tenants (T) who want to transfer to another
borough. We welcome any comments or suggestions that will help us improve and
facilitate giving people choice.
The Council is still responsible for the Housing Register and the advertising of both
Council and Housing Association properties within a free magazine called Locata HOME.
However each landlord checks that the applicant who matches successfully to each
property is eligible to be offered it. They will do that in accordance with their lettings
policies and procedures.
LOCATA will monitor, evaluate and review the choice based lettings scheme. This will be
by statistical analysis and speaking with focus groups made up of Home seekers,
tenants, officers of the council, voluntary and statutory agencies.
All Home-seekers and transfers on the Housing Register of the authority or housing
association partners automatically become members of LOCATA.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES IN HOUSING
The policy of this Council is to treat everyone equally whatever their age, sex, race,
colour, disability, marital status or sexual orientation.
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Updated: February 2007