Issue - meetings

(Report of the Assistant Director, Assets)

The Chair welcomed the Assistant Director Assets and the Portfolio Holder for Housing, Homelessness and Planning to present the report to provide an update on the Councils approach to Damp & Mould in housing properties.

The Portfolio Holder provided a summary of the report. The Officer confirmed that this is an area of interest to the Social Housing Regulator, and they wanted to see that the Council had a process and monitoring in place. There is a spotlight on damp and mould and the Council were required to do a self-assessment.

As of Monday there were 37 live cased in the MLDINS code – averaging about 18-20 a cases per month.

Since the policy was produced the Council have been working with contractors on a contract reset process to strengthen procedures around damp and mould and provide more oversight around responses, however there would be resource implications for this.

The Council now have access to specialist contractors for more complex cases, which is a costly service but enables a better response.

There is a link to information and videos on dealing with damp and mould on the website.

Progress is being continually monitored as well as follow up calls being made after a case is closed.

There are no obvious trends in areas or archetype however family homes do seem to be worse.

The policy is evolving, and will need refreshing regularly.

The Committee made the following comments/observations and asked the following questions:

1)    Are there any common trends at all identified in terms of property type/area?

The Officer confirmed that there was a problem identified with properties with concrete balconies, so they have had insulation fitted on them, but generally there are no obvious trends. With low figures of 18-20 a month this can make it difficult to identify trends however the use of the MDLNIS code allows us to complete a breakdown and analysis.

2)    With changes in legislations, are we doing enough horizon planning as we go forward, have targets been set and are these resourced? How are future proofing and planning as age of stock declines there will be a rising cost to keep properties up to date?

We have built in costs to look at insulation and other energy efficiencies in homes and this is being looked at as to whether this is affordable. As more stringent requirements come in, more resources (which may be external) will need to be built in.

At the moment targets sit within the repairs policy, but this will change under Awaabs law, and in severe cases the Council will need to respond within 24 hours and work is being done with Equans around this.

In an ideal world we don’t want any issues with damp and mould but  there will always be some. It was explained that of the 18-20 reported some of these will only be slight (i.e. damp around windows) and some may not an inherent damp problem but the aftermath of another problem, i.e. a leak.

With  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58