Urgent £5m repairs needed on council’s social housing this year

More than £5 million in urgent repairs to a Devon council’s housing stock will be needed this year even after a better-than-expected review of its entire estate.

The most pressing repairs have been unearthed as part of a long-awaited, wide-ranging analysis of East Devon District Council’s more than 4,500 homes.
About half of this year’s urgent repairs bill – £2.7 million – will be carried out on kitchens, with just over £1 million set to be spent on improving bathrooms and extractor fans.
The remainder will be focused on boilers and windows, which will be key as part of efforts to keep homes warmer and better insulated.
That will be a key focus for the council given the survey of its properties showed that 370 of them had instances of major or medium damp.
The council said some repairs and replacements of equipment had already been completed, while the damp issues either had been or were being tackled.
In spite of the urgent repairs bill, the council’s stock condition survey has shown that just over 93 per cent of its surveyed properties passed the government’s Decent Homes Standard, which sets the minimum quality council homes must meet.
This means less than 7 per cent of its surveyed homes failed to meet that benchmark.
The external firm that conducted the survey, Currie & Brown, visited 3,554 of the council’s properties and assessed the remaining 588 via desktop analysis.
Councillor Dan Ledger (Independent, Seaton), the cabinet member for sustainable homes and communities, said he was “happy with the outcome” the council had achieved.
“Our aim is to deliver the homes people deserve to live in and we want to be a good landlord,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“We are still on an improvement journey but compared to where we were, we are in such a better position.
“Now we have all the data we need and that will inform our plans for the future.”
In terms of the cases of damp, Cllr Ledger  said most of the cases had been dealt with or were in progress.
“They are part of the so-called Category 1, heavy priority issues and so they should be completed this year or already be completed,” he said.
“Our focus is on clearing the Category 1 issues and then we’ll move to the Category 2 issues, which are split into moderate and slight.”
Nearly 2,000 homes had Category 2 issues.
Besides homes, the stock condition survey also looked at 15 community centres, 10 sewerage treatment plants and the council’s estate of garages.
Cllr Ledger said another report would be compiled on the district’s community centres to further assess them, and consider the potential investment needed in them in line with health and safety requirements.
“We previously took the decision to close the Millway Community Centre in Axminster on health and safety grounds , which was the right thing to do, but from the data I have seen [in the stock condition survey] I don’t think there will be a need to close others from a health and safety point of view.”
Elsewhere, Cllr Ledger said the 10 sewage treatment plants were on council-owned land which was why they had been assessed as part of the stock condition survey.
He said required maintenance had been factored into this year’s budget, and affirmed that none of the plants on council-owned land were responsible for spills into waterways.
The results of the stock condition survey have coincided with a national watchdog’s first review of East Devon’s social housing.
The Regulator for Social Housing gave the council a C2 rating, the second-highest of four possible ratings.