Call for Urgent Review of Empty Council Homes

Cross-party scrutiny committee says 449 properties lie vacant

Nearly 200 homes have been unused for over a year. Picture: gov.uk

July 14, 2023

A cross-party group of councillors has recommended that an urgent review of vacant council homes be undertaken in the borough of Hounslow.

A ‘deep-dive’ by a panel of both Labour and Conservative councillors into housing in the borough revealed that 449 homes owned by the council were currently empty and 199 of those had not been lived in for a year. The Conservative opposition says that the rate of empty properties is double the national average.

The call for the review was made as part of a series of recommendations in the Scrutiny Annual Report.

Chaired by Cllr Afzaal Kiani, the current Mayor of Hounslow, the housing panel’s membership was Cllr Madeeha Asim; Cllr Dan Bowring; Cllr Jack Emsley; Cllr Richard Foote; Cllr Lara Parizotto; Cllr Marina Sharma; Cllr Aftab Siddiqui and Cllr Mohammed Umair.

Over the last year, they looked at the council’s housing repairs system, focusing on performance and processes and customer satisfaction. The Panel heard from Directors and Senior Management from Lampton 360 and senior officers and Members from the Council including former Executive Director for Housing, Peter Matthew, and Lead Member for Housing Management and Homelessness, Councillor Sue Sampson.

The council owns 16,000 homes in 230 locations across the borough. Of these 13,000 are lived in by council tenants and 3,000 by leaseholds. In total there are 22,000 social rented homes in the borough.

Coalo, a company wholly owned by the council, handles maintenance and repair spending around £30 million a year. The council receives 7,000 housing repair contacts each month. The panel found that 56% of people contacting the council’s customer care team are chasing up repairs that have been scheduled on their council home.

The councillors said that they had detected dissatisfaction with the repairs process on the door step and, although they were impressed by the data collected by Coalo, they felt that they had too many Key Performance Indicators and therefore ‘couldn’t see the wood for the trees’.

The report states, “The panel was struck by the obvious lack of coherent approach to customer service across organisations and the number of hand-offs that took place during any customer journey through the repairs process.”

Although there was a 100% satisfaction rate among customers when jobs were completed there was a high level of frustration with the process as the work was being undertaken.

The panel recommended that a representative sample of residents are regularly polled on Coalo’s performance.

In meetings with the Panel, Coalo management had admitted to the organisation being ‘fundamentally broken’ before a transformation programme that was begun a year ago and is due to be completed next summer. Since it was formed the company has faced a series of challenges including Covid, Brexit and inflation which have made its job more difficult.

“The council’s waiting list for housing has reached close to 6,000 in the past year, yet it could reduce that list substantially by simply utilising existing empty properties,” said Jack Emsley, Conservative Councillor for Chiswick Homefields and member of the Housing and Environment Scrutiny Panel. “The council is failing in its duty to turn around empty council homes in a timely fashion, at a time when thousands are waiting for housing support. I hope the council listens to the panel’s recommendations, carries out this urgent review of empty properties in the borough and puts in placer a clear plan to urgently fix this scandal.”

The report of the Housing Scrutiny Panel is due to presented at a Borough Council meeting on (18 July).

Councillor Sue Sampson, Cabinet Member for Housing at Hounslow Council, said, “Backlogs of void properties and delays to repairs is an issue that all London boroughs are facing due to a variety of complex factors.

“We know this is also an issue in Hounslow and we are working hard to rectify the delays. Some of our void properties require considerable works to return them to a healthy liveable condition which does increase the vacancy time.

“Given the shortage of homes it’s important when it comes to finding a new property, residents are realistic in their expectations of what is available and work with us to find a property that fits their needs.

“We remain committed to ensuring we deliver the best possible service to our residents and improve living conditions in all our current homes, while committing to build 1,000 new homes by 2026 to tackle the shortage.”