Charnwood: £860k plan to tackle empty council house repairs

The council said more than 130 empty homes were in need of repair

A Leicestershire council aims to allocate £860,000 annually to clear a backlog of repairs on dozens of council houses and bring them back into use.

Charnwood Borough Council said delays caused by the Covid pandemic meant more than 130 homes were in need of repair.

The authority said the recent bankruptcy of a contractor originally hired to fix properties had exacerbated the problem.

The full council will now vote on whether to approve the investment.

The authority's cabinet has given the go-ahead to use £858,000 of funds to reduce the number of empty homes - known as voids - in the borough, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

'Unacceptably high'

At a cabinet meeting last week, deputy leader Colin Hamilton, who is also the lead member for public and private sector housing for the council, revealed one in 13 council properties were empty, adding the figure was "unacceptably high".

"Far too many are sitting empty right now and putting a strong focus on reducing the number of voids is absolutely the right way forward, and we need the extra resource to ensure that happens," he said.

The issue was also discussed at a scrutiny committee meeting earlier, where Peter Oliver, director of housing and wellbeing, told councillors that prior to the pandemic, the housing team were able to repair about 500 properties a year.

"We're at a point where without an additional injection of capacity I don't believe we'll catch up, and I don't believe we'll clear the backlog we've got," he said.

Mr Oliver said the funding would initially be for two years, with an option to continue depending on how fast the repairs were carried out.

Council officers also agreed they should consider "additional financial checks" on the next company they use to carry out repairs, after councillor Leigh Harper-Davis said at the scrutiny meeting "our fingers have been burnt severely".