Council says housing work under way after 'failings'

Broxtowe Borough Council said it has made improvements after a watchdog found "serious failings" in how it manages its housing stock.

In January, the Regulator of Social Housing said the council "failed to meet the outcomes" in the consumer standards which included more than 3,000 overdue repairs and upgrades relating to fire safety.

The council was given a C3 rating, which means there were "serious failings" and "significant improvement" was needed.

Darren Ibell, the council's assistant director for asset management, said the report provided a "really good health check" for the authority and said work had already started to remedy problems identified.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the C3 rating issued to the Broxtowe Alliance run council was the second worst rating a social housing provider can receive.

Milan Radulovic, leader of the council, said he was "extremely disappointed" with the rating, but at a council meeting on Tuesday, he said he believed the rating was "unfair" and added "there was an awful lot of good in the housing regulation report".

However Philip Owen, leader of the Conservative group at the council, said the report was "an embarrassing humiliation".

"[The regulator] wasn't disappointed. They didn't say 'oh, it don't look very good'. Significant improvement, serious failings, is what they said.

"I've heard not a word of apology from any elected member responsible tonight," he added.

Darren Ibell, the council's assistant director for asset management, said it was "disappointing" the authority had been "pulled up" in terms of the amount of actions it needed to resolve.

"Thirteen months ago, we had no contractors whatsoever procured to deliver any work in relation to fire. We now have five all procured, all working on our stock.

"This week alone one of our contractors has completed 163 fire actions in our stock. That just shows you in a week what can be achieved over a short period of time.

"Fire risk assessments were poor, inconsistent, and had lots of gaps.

"We've completed a full review of all our fire risk assessments across every block where we have shared spaces. We are working towards the actions generated," he said.

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