A South London Council initiative aimed at helping homeless people with housing could be abandoned.

Kingston Council’s place committee has been asked to approve recommendations to cancel the Community Benefit Society (CBS) which the authority had previously voted to create.

The council’s housing committee approved plans in January 2018 for the not-for-profit organisation to help homeless people or those at risk of becoming homeless into housing.

This includes letting out homes needing revamping, which have become available on council estates, and giving cash to help people with rent or deposits for private rented homes.

The society was set to operate from April 2018. But a new report to the council’s place committee says no progress has been made and asks the committee to approve cancelling it.

The report says: “Following investigatory work undertaken by officers in 2018, and the competing demands on housing services in undertaking estate regeneration work, progress to establish the CBS was not achieved.

“It is recognised that a formal decision to not progress with the creation of the CBS has not been made and this paper seeks to correct the omission and requests agreement to formally supersede the decision of the January 2018 housing sub-committee and seek agreement of committee to cancel the creation of a CBS.”

The society was set to have the power to acquire and let temporary housing, including those becoming empty on the Cambridge Road Estate as it is bulldozed and rebuilt.

It would have set rent charges for temporary homes on the estate at similar levels to those in the council’s private leasing scheme, which most of the authority’s longer-term temporary housing is provided under.

A report to the council’s housing committee in 2018 said the society would acquire homes and let them at affordable rents and consider applications to give cash to eligible people on low incomes or benefits to pay for advance rent or deposits to secure private housing.

It said any income generated above running costs could be used to fund rent or deposits.

The council said in a statement to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that it is “committed” to getting people at risk of homelessness or living in temporary housing the “support they need, when they need it”.

A spokesperson for the council said: “Kingston currently has over 900 households living in temporary accommodation and around 3,700 on our housing register, waiting for social housing.

"To tackle this, we need to build the homes we need both now and in the future.

“The regeneration programme on the Cambridge Road Estate to provide 2,170 new homes on the Cambridge Road Estate is progressing, with phase one construction expected to begin in 2022.

"We’re also making the most of smaller, under-used sites, creating 100 new energy-efficient, sustainable homes across four sites in the borough.

“Investigatory work was undertaken by officers in 2018 into establishing a Community Benefit Society to help people in temporary accommodation.

"No decision has yet been taken and a report will be presented to the council’s place committee later this month.”