Housing chiefs said that they were investing more than £15 million to tackle serious failings in hundreds of council homes.
The spending is part of a series of steps due to be outlined to Brighton and Hove City Council’s Labour cabinet at a meeting in the coming week.
A report to the cabinet spells out a series of actions under way and planned after the Regulator of Social Housing published a critical report last month.
The regulator said that the council “is failing to ensure that it meets a number of legal requirements in relation to health and safety”.
There were shortcomings in
- electrical safety
- provision of smoke detectors
- water safety
- fire safety
The regulator said that 3,600 council homes out of about 12,100 did not have an electrical condition report.
And more than 600 homes required a water risk assessment while 500 were at least three months overdue for water safety repairs and improvements.
The “significant backlog” of 8,000 low-risk and low-priority repairs was also highlighted.
In response, the council said that it had set up a Corporate Housing Building Safety Programme and was tracking all “compliance actions” to manage risks effectively.
The report to the cabinet said: “We have adopted a risk-based approach to inspections and following remedial actions, prioritising properties based on the severity of identified risks.
“This strategy ensures that high-risk issues are addressed first while also providing a clear timeline for completing lower-risk actions.
“This approach is designed to give confidence that we are managing our compliance obligations in a structured and effective manner.
“Our monitoring framework includes regular updates to the Regulator of Social Housing.
“With regard to compliance with the wider building safety and fire safety requirements, we are also engaging with other regulatory bodies we are accountable to, including East Sussex Fire and Rescue Authority and the Health and Safety Executive / Building Safety Regulator.”
The council has completed fire risk assessments for all 68 high-risk buildings and for 569 non-high-risk buildings.
A detailed action plan has been drawn up for each of the council’s 46 high-rise blocks of flats while more work is needed on fire risk assessments for lower-risk buildings.
A programme to fir all council homes with a hard-wired smoke detection system by December 2026 had reached 83.6 per cent of homes up to July.
An electrical testing and compliance team aims to retest all domestic and communal properties by December 2026 and to maintain a five-year testing cycle.
So far 56 per cent of the 12,013 council housing properties have a valid electrical installation report completed within the past five years and 73.7 per cent within the past ten years.
The number of outstanding routine repairs which have not been completed within 28 days has fallen from 9,653 in June to 7,250 in July. And the long-term repairs backlog fell from 6,476 in June to 5,309 in July.
Since April, of the 2,829 new repair jobs logged, 77 per cent were completed within 28 days.
The cabinet is due to discuss the situation at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (26 September). The meeting is scheduled to start at 2pm and to be webcast on the council’s website.
We’re 7 years on from Grenfell, and it sounds like it’s only after the Regulator stepped in that the council has only just got an action plan in place for its high rise buildings.
Are they expecting a round of applause for completing fire risk assessments for all 68 high-risk buildings?? This is a legal requirements and it’s scandalous that this has not been happening as it should. Housing is such a basic, and this council has failed on one of their most basic duties.
Common sense says that councils should take a “risk-based approach to inspections and following remedial actions, prioritising properties based on the severity of identified risks” how did this not occur to them before now – it doesn’t sound that reassuring if they’ve only just had this lightbulb moment!
Poor ongoing management and maintenance that the norm for council run facilities…. Failure to keep on top of issues and regulations that would land privately owned blocks of flats in court..
My council tax once again spent for my benefit…. not!
I replied to your comment but it went under Chris.
Health and safety investments in bringing tower blocks up to standard are typically paid for through council tenants’ rents, which feed into the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). The HRA is a ring-fenced account used for managing council housing stock, and it is separate from the general fund, which is financed by council tax receipts and other revenue streams. Council tenants’ rents have indeed risen in recent years, partly due to inflation and the need to fund these essential improvements. Importantly, council tax primarily goes toward other local services, not the maintenance or improvement of council housing, which is covered by the HRA
So what are the council going to do. I’m not a mathematician, but unless they raise rents to an astronimical amount they won’t bring in enough to cover the work they need to do, so they risk not meeting their legal housing duties and leaving residents at risk in the process. The Labour councillors need to be challenging Ministers on the dire situation and ensure that they do address the massive gaps in local government funding after 14 years of austerity, and the extra burdens created by new (and better legislation) in place to protect tenants. If they don’t have the courage to challenge Ministers for more funding it’s a dereliction of duty imo.
tbh they are outsourcing almost all of the work, they have been investing in in-house electrical teams, apprenticeships etc, they must go further, to reduce the costs, the dynamic purchasing system needs looking at, bring the whole service in house like they said it would be, the council inherited a lot of disrepair issues from the fraudulent Mears group. The rents are paying for this, but its at a premium right now, they cant put rents up higher than the inflation amount, which has significantly dropped.
Agree to your point about ministers for sure.
Investing ? Wrong word. Try “catching up with our legal obligations that we have blatantly ignored and lied about for a long time”.
Did they find the money down the back of the settee?
About the council that demonises private landlords by the national Regulator of Social Housing. BHCC is the worst landlord in this city by a mile. The least safe properties of all in this city – all the hallmarks of corruption. “Our judgement is that there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed”.
This hasn’t happened overnight but has been endemic since the maintenance service was outsourced. However it has been unforgivably slow to address the issue. Nearly all the high-rise council blocks are nearing the end of their useful life. I don’t see any foresight planning going on. It does beggar belief what the Council employees have been doing for the previous years whilst drawing their wages and topping up their gold-plated pensions. It starts at the top and trickles down. Complete lack of oversight and dereliction of duty.