Help to adapt your home
We provide grants which can help towards the cost of adapting your home.
Disabled facilities grants
If you own your home or rent it from a private landlord and need to make alterations to your home to meet the needs of your disability, you may be eligible for help towards the cost.
The first step is to get in touch with the Occupational Therapists at Derbyshire County Council – you can contact them on 01629 533190.
They will visit you to decide what extra help you need and if necessary arrange for their architects to draw up the plans.
The amount of grant you receive towards the works will be decided by a ‘means test’, this means that your income, savings and circumstances will be considered to determine the level of grant awarded. This is to make sure that people that are in the greatest need receive the most financial help. Depending on the outcome of the means test you may be asked to pay a contribution towards the cost of the work.
The grant, or a proportion of it, may be reclaimed if you own your property and you sell it within a specified time. The amount to be repaid will be limited to amounts that exceed £5,000, and will not exceed a repayment of £10,000.
How do I apply?
The first step is to get in touch with the Occupational Therapists at Derbyshire County Council – you can contact them on 01629 533190.
North East Derbyshire District Council tenants can apply for an adaptation through Rykneld Homes.
Energy Efficiency
With more and more households across the UK deemed to be in fuel poverty, can you afford not to be warm this winter?
Together with partners we can provide advice to help local people get a better deal on their energy bills and tackle fuel poverty.
Our Home Assistance Co-ordinator and Community Outreach Workers can provide you with information and advice on reducing your fuel costs, ensuring you are receiving the benefits you are entitled to and improve the energy efficiency of your home.
The service is free and our officers can:
- Contact energy suppliers on your behalf
- Read and explain energy bills
- Help you to reduce your fuel costs
- Switch energy suppliers on your behalf
- Provide energy companies with correct meter readings
- Get you help with dealing with fuel debt
- Give advice on renewable energy in your home
- Provide information about the financial assistance available
- Refer you for a benefit check
- Give advice on home insulation
- Help with grant funding applications
- Give advice on mould and damp
- Give advice on repairs to your home
If you want a Home Assistance Co-ordinator or Community Outreach Worker to help you with free advice and information please telephone Environmental Health on (01246) 231111.
Council housing - Rykneld Homes
The Council has around 7,600 properties which are managed by Rykneld Homes. They provide a wide range of housing services to our tenants. They work in partnership with us to deliver our housing priorities which are designed to improve services to tenants and residents, strengthen our local communities and improve our estates and neighbourhoods.
Rykneld Homes is also responsible for delivering the long term regeneration of our housing. They are leading the project to build new Council homes, carry out structural repairs to non-traditionally built homes and make sure our homes are properly insulated and energy efficient.
Services provided by Rykneld Homes on behalf of the Council include:
- Letting Council properties through our Choice Based Lettings scheme – Choice Move - and delivering the Council’s Allocations Policy.
- Carrying out Repairs and Maintenance to Council homes.
- Adaptions to council homes
- Empty property repairs – getting homes ready for new tenants.
- Delivering the Capital Programme on behalf of the Council.
- Managing estates – including dealing with anti-social behaviour, tenancy issues, cleaning and maintaining estates.
- Involving local communities in the work of Rykneld Homes.
- Carrying out the long term regeneration of Council homes and building new properties to let for social rent.
- Rent collection, arrears management and financial inclusion advice.
- Leasehold management and managing the Right to Buy.
- Tenant feedback - Compliments, Comments or Complaints
For information, repairs or issues with your council property. Please visit the Rykneld Homes website or contact them directly at Contact Rykneld Homes - Rykneld Homes
How do I apply for a council home?
You can apply for a home – or register to transfer or exchange your existing property – through a choice based lettings scheme called Choice Move. This can be accessed online on the Rykneld Homes website or by calling (01246) 217670.
Choice Move is designed to give people choice over the property they would like, while making sure housing is offered to those people most in need.
Everyone applying for a home is assessed according to their need and placed into one of four priority bands.
Current tenants can also apply for an exchange through a mutual exchange scheme called HomeSwapper. Rykneld Homes tenants can register for free by visiting the HomeSwapper website.
Homelessness and housing advice
We will make every effort to stop you from losing your home. Local Authorities have legal duties to Prevent and Relieve homelessness for people who are eligible.
Put simply, if you are threatened with homelessness we will work with you for 56 days or even longer to stop you from losing your home.
If you are homeless already, we will work with you for 56 days to help you to secure accommodation. If you are homeless but do not have a local connection, we may refer you to the Local Authority that you have a connection with.
How can we help?
Our Homelessness Prevention and Housing Options service can help you in the following ways:
- We will assess your current housing situation and work out what your needs and requirements are.
- We will negotiate with family, friends and landlords on your behalf to stop you from becoming homeless.
- In some cases we will provide emergency accommodation. This usually will be in the case of families with children, and in cases where an applicant has what’s called a priority need.
- If you are worried that you might become homeless, we can give you advice on the next steps and how to stay in your home.
- You can be referred to us in a number of ways, including through our partners and support services such as The Derbyshire Law Centre, Citizens Advice or Rykneld Homes if you are a Council tenant.
- If you have a physical or mental illness, if you are a former member of the armed forces and homeless, a care leaver and homeless or if you have been released from prison and have nowhere to live we can refer you to specialist support organisations that can help you.
- We can refer you to specialist Domestic Abuse support and accommodation services.
- We can refer to legal specialists such as the Derbyshire Law Centre.
- Supported housing may be an option for you and we can make referrals on your behalf in these circumstances.
- We will make a Personal Housing Plan with you so that you can work towards the next steps to find a permanent home.
- We can help you to access the Private Rented Sector by helping you with rent in advance payments and rent deposits.
- If you are single and over 18 we will refer you to our single persons pathway service which is provided by Pathways of Chesterfield.
Our aim is to prevent homelessness so don’t leave it too late to get help and advice!
Are you experiencing financial difficulty?
Our team might be able to help you in these ways:
- With a one-off payment to assist with housing costs.
- With rent arrears to stop you being evicted by your landlord.
- By making referrals to organisations for emergency grants and loans.
- Our Homelessness Prevention Service can help you if you are homeless, or if you are likely to lose your home soon.
- If you have issues because of new benefit changes such as Universal Credit, the Bedroom Tax, Benefit Cap or Local Housing allowance.
- With budgeting and managing your money at home.
- With getting a smaller, more financially manageable home.
Do you rent privately?
- We can help if you are being harassed or threatened by your landlord, or if you have been locked out of your home, evicted or if the rent is being increased.
- We can visit you at home and work with you and anyone who might try to make you homeless, to resolve your housing problems.
Finding a home
We can help you with:
- Your council housing application
- Assessing and reviewing your priority need as a homeless household, including if you have extra or complex housing needs.
- Looking at the housing options available to you, including temporary accommodation or private housing.
- Giving you advice and possible assistance to find somewhere to stay tonight, in an emergency, when you have nowhere else to go.
- Reviewing a refused homelessness or council housing application.
Rough sleeping
P3 Charity provide the Derbyshire outreach service (DOT). To notify them about someone who is or may be rough sleeping please call 0808 1968 199.
Housing strategy and enabling
We are responsible for making sure everyone in the district has access to suitable housing. The Housing Strategy Team have produced a Housing Strategy which outlines the Council’s priorities for securing access to a range of good quality housing for its residents, from this the housing priorities identified are;
- Increasing housing growth and promoting home ownership.
- Improve existing housing.
- Protect the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Affordable housing
Affordable Housing is provided for people who cannot afford to rent or buy privately in the housing market.
Affordable rented housing, usually referred to as social rented housing, is normally owned by a local authority or housing association also known as a Registered Provider (RP).
Homes to rent
When council or Housing Association properties become available to rent they are advertised through a choice based lettings scheme called Choice Move which is managed by Rykneld Homes. Further information can be found on the Rykneld Homes' Find a Home page.
Supported Housing
The Housing Strategy Team also works with partners to identify and enable the provision of supported housing schemes for vulnerable groups such as young people, older people, people with disabilities, including mental health issues or people with learning disabilities. Many of these schemes are delivered by agencies in the voluntary sector or through RPs and funded by Derbyshire County Council.
Housing related support enables vulnerable people to maintain their tenancies and avoid homelessness.
Homes to buy
If you would like to own your own home, but cannot afford to buy on the open market, there are a number of government-sponsored schemes that could help you. The one-stop information point for all the schemes is Help to Buy Midlands, the government-appointed HomeBuy agent for the Midlands.
For more information, call 03458 50 20 50.
Housing and economic growth
The Council’s corporate vision is, North East Derbyshire will be a place that is clean and attractive, a place where people are proud to live and work, where they will prosper and are safe, happy and healthy.
To meet the vision one of our key aims is to unlock the districts growth potential, with key priorities to encourage economic and housing growth. We will work with partners in the public, private and voluntary and community sectors to unlock any major employment development sites, develop and deliver more jobs and training opportunities, enable and encourage the development of new and existing businesses, develop the districts rural and urban economies and support housing growth by enabling the delivery of housing by increasing the supply, quality and range to meet the needs of a growing population.
For more information you can view the Council’s Housing Strategy.
Private sector housing
We are responsible for the enforcement of housing standards in the private sector, which includes owner occupied properties as well those which are privately rented and mobile homes.
Housing disrepair
We have significant legal powers to require the owners of private property to properly maintain their dwellings.
Our two main powers are:
- To require owners of a property to fix substantial disrepair and prohibit the use of properties that have significant hazards.
- To require landlords to carry out repairs to privately rented property where the conditions cause hazards to occupying tenants
If you live in rented accommodation and you think the property is not in good repair, you can contact us to discuss the issue if the landlord does not carry out the repairs.
Licensing of mobile home /caravan sites
We issue licences to site owners of mobile homes and certain caravan sites. As part of the licence we apply conditions which are enforced. Guidance on when a site licence is required can be found on the government's website.
If you live on a licensed site and have any concerns about the conditions on the site you can contact us to discuss the issue and we can investigate your complaint.
For more information contact Environmental Health on (01246) 231111
Contact us
You can email the Housing Options Team on:
Telephone: (01246) 231111
Telephone (emergency out of hours): 0808 1692 333
Text: 0780 0002 425
You can reach us by using our online referral portal.
For more detailed information, visit our Homelessness page.
We are delighted to enable British Sign Language users to contact us using a British Sign Language video interpreter, via the InterpretersLive! service.
Address: North East Derbyshire District Council, 2013 Mill Lane, Wingerworth, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S42 6NG.