Council plans to spend £36m on reaching decent homes standard
North Northants Council (NNC) has revealed its plans to spend £36m on bringing its housing stock up to the decent homes standard over the next four years.
The authority acts as the landlord of more than 8,000 social homes, primarily located across Corby and Kettering.
The draft Housing Services Asset Management Strategy, which was discussed by the council’s place and environment scrutiny committee on Tuesday (March 3), sets out how NNC will comply with its statutory obligations for housing maintenance.
The draft strategy follows the council receiving a C2 grading from the social housing regulator last week, which highlighted some areas that need further improvement.
Within the judgment, NNC acknowledged that about 14 per cent, or 1,100 homes, do not currently meet the Decent Homes Standard.
This is a set of minimum quality rules for UK social housing to ensure it is free from dangerous hazards, is in a reasonable state of repair, has reasonably modern facilities and services, provides a reasonable degree of thermal comfort, and is free from damp and mould.
NNC says it has established plans to ensure all its homes meet the decent standard by 2028.
Assistant director for strategic housing, development and property services, Evonne Coleman-Thomas, told members that the council will be developing an improvement plan to identify and formalise its journey from C2 to the top C1 grade for social housing.
She added: “Historically, we have overcome considerable legacy issues relating to housing. We’re not complacent, we know there’s lots to do, and we, like you, will be celebrating when we get the C1 [regulator judgement].”
A breakdown of the decent homes budget over the next four years commits £36.5m from now until 2028/29. It breaks down the spend further into different categories of homes fit for the future, kitchens and bathrooms, heating and electrical upgrades, major void works and more.
The council has a ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account (HRA) to deliver all revenue and capital programmes, which does not directly impact the wider General Fund budget. NNC’s HRA capital expenditure budget for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 period is £54.8m, with £18m of this to be spent on new build housing developments.
During 2025, the council invested in additional stock condition surveyor roles to increase the number of surveys that had been completed within the last five years. This has resulted in over 85 per cent of the stock now having an up‑to‑date survey, which is used to more accurately plan refurbishments and improvements for homes.
The meeting heard that the remaining properties that have still not had stock surveys were largely down to issues with the council gaining access to the properties.
Officers explained this could be down to a number of reasons, including difficulty organising visits around work commitments, cultural or support needs for vulnerable residents, and the potential that some people may want to avoid checks for detrimental reasons such as sub-letting, hoarding or criminal activity. They added that they had started to serve notices on those residents to enforce its ability to get behind the door and carry out inspections.
It is anticipated that the strategy will be presented to the executive in April for approval.