Thousands of council house repairs needed at properties across north Northamptonshire

About 6,000 repairs need to be done across North Northamptonshire Council’s (NCC) 8,000 council homes, with hundreds of them delayed by a backlog caused by Covid-19.

About 1,300 non-emergency repairs are carried out by NNC in a standard month, the authority said.

A special team will work to get delayed repairs done as quickly as possible but an NCC boss conceded it ‘probably won’t’ be able to finish the jobs within its target of a year.

But David Watts, NNC’s executive director of adults, health partnerships and housing, said he hoped the work will put a ‘significant dent’ in the jobs delayed by work pausing during Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

Cllr Andrew Weatherill, chairman of NNC’s audit and governance committee, said the scale of the problem was ‘very large’ and that councillors had been left ‘really concerned’ about the impact on tenants and NNC.

Of all outstanding repairs, about 3,400 are in Corby and 2,600 are in Kettering.

Dan Hannam, NNC’s interim strategic lead for housing property services, said getting repairs down will be helped by £900,000 allocated in NNC’s budget for 2023/24 in February.

He said tenants will get a letter from NNC giving them an appointment for repairs.

If residents miss one visit, they will receive a yellow card to indicate that and a red card if a second visit is missed. Residents would need to book an appointment themselves through the council if that happened.

Cllr Jean Addison, who represents Corby West, told the committee on Monday, April 24: “As a Corby councillor, you will understand I’ve got great concerns about this because most casework is about housing and the lack of repairs. I do understand about the Covid situation and this is a positive move setting up this team but it’s a little late.

“It should have been done before this time. You knew there was a backlog, you knew it had to be dealt with and it’s just become…well, it’s almost out of control, I would say."

Evonne Hudson, NNC’s assistant director for strategic housing, development and property services, said: “Until we get into some of these [homes] we won’t know if that £900,000 is enough but it’s certainly a very good start for us to get in there and do some of that work.

“We need to be clear when residents know when they should report a [problem] and how they should do it.

"We have many elderly residents who don’t want to disturb anybody and they will leave that tap dripping until the ceiling caves through.”

Of NNC’s properties, about a third of them in both towns are three-bedroom houses. NNC said about 500 of its 4,600 properties in Corby were built before 1945 and about 2,000 were built between 1946 and 1964. Another 1,100 were built between 1965 and 1974 and about 1,000 were built after that.

In Kettering, about 1,000 of the 3,600 properties were built before 1945, another 1,300 between 1945 and 1964, 500 between 1965 and 1974 and about 800 after 1974. The age of the homes can make it more difficult to source replacement materials, such as tiles.

NNC’s scrutiny commission will be told about the repair plan and given other figures about the authority’s housing stock at a meeting on May 9.