The council is spending £2 million on a survey of its housing stock as it continues to reverse “serious failings” identified by a government regulator last year.
Councillors were told the backlog of repairs to council homes has been slashed by almost three-quarters since the Regulator for Social Housing published its damning report in August 2024.
On Thursday (11 December), Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet backed spending the money on the two-year specialist survey of its 12,000 homes so issues like damp and mould can be fixed quickly.
In its report, the regulator said the council was weak on managing electrics, fire, water and smoke detection safety as well as having a “significant” repairs backlog.
Cabinet member for housing councillor Gill Williams told the meeting there are currently 2,479 outstanding repairs, down from a high of 9,653.
Councillor Williams said 93 per cent of council homes now had valid five-year electrical certificates and more than 99 per cent had smoke detection checks.
Repairs or modifications required by fire risk assessments have also reduced by three-quarters from 8,268 to 2,918.
Councillor Williams confirmed the council is taking action to address Awaab’s Law, which requires social landlords to fix damp and mould issues quickly.
She said: “Awaab’s law increases operational pressures on repairs and maintenance, especially around damp and mould.
“We are taking special actions to tackle that so our residents don’t have to suffer with damp and mould.”
Council leader Bella Sankey said: “It sounds like a really positive direction of travel, sorting out some really serious legacy and historic issues.
“I know it was a very thorough analysis as to how we got to where we did and a systems approach will help ensure we never get back there again.”
When the regulator made its ruling in August 2024, approximately 8,000 “low risk” repairs were outstanding, some dating back to 2021. Outstanding repairs reached a high of 10,000 in 2022 due to the pandemic.
Last year, the council committed to spending £15 million on addressing the multiple failings and brought in extra contractors to deal with the backlog, as new repairs were still coming in even with workers carrying out between 3,000 and 3,500 repairs a month.
In November tenants and leaseholder representatives received the latest report from the housing department for July to September 2025, which showed 2,861 out of 2,874 (99.5 per cent) emergency repairs were completed within 24 hours.
As the older repairs are cleared, the time it takes to complete routine repairs has also reduced with 4,233 out of 7,668 (61 per cent) carried out in 28 days between July and September, up from 2,701 out of 5,355 (50.4 per cent) during the same period in 2024.
What a superb way to spend £2M… why not use it to undertake the backlog of repairs which have already been reported?
Because that would be inefficient. If you survey all the properties, you find out all that needs repairing, you then plan the most efficient (time, cost, scope and quality) way to repair them all. It’s basic programme planning.
That’s another brown envelope
The council requires private landlords to do two inspections per year. Here they’ve given a 2 million pound budget between 12,000 homes that gives a budget of around 160 pounds per property over these 2 years. That won’t pay for four inspections. Probably not even two. Don’t council tenants deserve at least the same level of service as private ones? 2 million pounds sounds like a lot, but with this many properties it’s certainly not enough to deliver proactive maintenance. It’s not close to enough to stop the claims from ambulance chasing lawyers. A larger investment may actually save money as well as making life better for tenants.
Councillors Bella Sankey and Gill Williams keep spinning things as being legacy issues, but the Regulator for Social Housing judgment issued to the council in 2024 it said that “the majority” of the 8,000 low risk repair backlog were raised in 2023 – the year their Labour administration took control of the council, so they were logged on their watch.
Yes, I don’t doubt that there was a knock on impact from the pandemic, but I really wish this administration would stop playing smoke and mirrors with the truth.
This appears to be an eminently sensible approach to anticipate and avoid future problems in this area. Any good landlord should take proactive steps to maintain their investment and BHCC should be no different. I presume that the funds are sourced from the Housing Income budget, so should be self-funding.
Just as the NHS thinks more money will make things alright, so the council wants repairs to go away by just throwing money at sub-contractors.
We need supervision of work standards and contractors called to account. We need control of how tenants use the properties they are GIVEN. Again and again we see how when a council flat has vacated it could take weeks to be brought back to a state to re-let . If properties were so decrepit in private house-lets it would lead to thousands of pounds of fines for the landlord and possibly a criminal record.
Tenants who dry laundry in the family living space and then call the mould brigade is an example.