More than 1,600 fire safety tasks outstanding - council

Homes in the Lakeview estate are having cladding replaced

A Surrey council where homes were lacking "vital" fire safety checks has more than 1,600 outstanding tasks still to complete.

Most of the remedial actions needed on homes in Woking are overdue by between six to 12 months, with the council saying its focus was on the 224 "high risk actions".

In December the Regulator of Social Housing found that more than 400 homes were "overdue high risk remedial actions" including safety checks or carbon monoxide alarms.

At the time the council's leader apologised and said there was "nothing more important than the safety of residents".

Members of the council's community and housing scrutiny committee will get an update on the progress of works at a meeting on Tuesday.

Meeting documents show that 1,132 actions have been completed and a further 645 are in progress.

There are currently 976 yet to be started, while 777 actions were closed with no further action required, which the council said were mostly duplicates.

Of the 1,621 works to be completed, 1,066 were overdue, most by between six and 12 months, the council said.

Works started so far include removing cladding on 14 blocks of flats on the Lakeview estate where there were concerns about how residents would escape if there was a fire.

The council has also appointed a qualified fire safety consultant and instructed a specialist fire safety contractor to complete high priority works with a contract value of about £800,000.

The committee will also look at a draft housing fire safety policy to be introduced at the council.