More than 3,000 council homes in Nottingham have now been checked as part of an ongoing condition survey of all housing in the city – but more than 20,000 are still waiting for visits.
Nottingham City Council began a full stock condition survey of all its 26,000 properties last summer.
The last check was conducted more than eight years ago when Nottingham City Homes (NCH) was in charge of the city’s social housing.
The arms-length management organisation is now directly managed by the authority.
It was wound up after it emerged that millions of pounds of rent payers’ money from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) had been unlawfully diverted to the council’s general fund to prop up other services.
The council says the survey, which is being carried out on the authority’s behalf by property firm Savills, will help it make better decisions and improve standards for tenants.
Providing an update during a Full Council meeting on Monday (27 January), Cllr Jay Hayes, executive member for housing, said 3,338 homes had now been surveyed.
“We are not waiting for the complete survey to be finished,” he said.
“Any property that is highlighted as being at risk or needing repair work will be scheduled, and those repairs will be carried out as soon as they have been inspected.
“The information from the survey will be put into a new asset management system, which will feed into our HRA capital investment programme. We are putting money aside to ensure that we invest in updating our properties and getting on top of repairs.”
Cllr Hayes said no emergency or health and safety problems have been uncovered so far, and that the survey is on track to finish by March 2026.
The survey began shortly before the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), the independent organisation responsible for checking council homes, conducted its own review of the council and its properties in October last year.
The regulator said it uncovered almost 1,000 live cases of repairs, which have proven to be a “significant driver of complaints”. Further problems included gaps in checks on smoke and carbon monoxide detection measures.
The regulator has been investigating all social landlords after new consumer standards came into force in April 2024.
It can give a landlord one of four consumer standards grades: C1, C2, C3, and C4.
C1 is the highest grade, while C4, the lowest grade, is given when there are very serious failings which require the landlord to make “fundamental changes” to deliver improved outcomes.
The council was given a C3 rating.
Council tenants living in flats on Eddleston Drive in Clifton said their homes had been “neglected” for years.
Some of their problems included peeling render, damp and mould, and rotting woodwork.
Cllr Sarita-Marie Rehman-Wall (Lab) said during the meeting: “Could the executive member for housing and planning report the results of the recent inspection by the Regulator for Social Housing and explain what they mean for our council housing services?”
Cllr Hayes added: “The result of the inspection was what we expected. The judgement reflects that there are many outstanding issues, much of which require long-term planning to resolve.
“However, we had already started putting those improvements in place before the inspection started.”
Cllr Hayes said the council has commissioned a new IT system, currently being tested, to help better deal with complaints and repairs, while an oversight board has been set up to monitor improvements.
Around £20m has also been invested in frontline services to improve technology, equipment, and the training of housing services staff.
The regulator will inspect the council’s housing services again within six months to a year.
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