04 Feb Housing repairs backlog now cut by 89% as Harlow Council on track to clear the backlog
The backlog in council housing repairs has now been reduced by 89% since June 2023, with Harlow Council and HTS still firmly on track to clear the backlog by the end of the financial year.
January 2024 figures show that, since June, 4,884 backlog repairs have been completed from a starting figure of 5,481. This leaves just 597 jobs outstanding to be cleared by the end of March 2024. Of these, just 127 date back to 2022, with that year’s backlog now reduced by 94%.
These improvements come alongside several measures to fix council housing. These measures include the new tenancy audit programme, which is visiting tenants in their homes, the full stock condition survey to improve maintenance of council homes and the overhaul of how council housing is allocated to ensure local council homes are for local families, with a proposed allocations policy going to Cabinet this month.
Councillor David Carter, cabinet portfolio holder for housing, said:
“We remain fully committed to fixing council housing and are still well on track to completely clear the backlog in repairs by the end of March.
“We are currently looking at a reduction in backlog repairs of 89%; this goes to show that all the hard work that has gone into turning this around since June – changing working practices and bringing the standard repair time down from 9 months to 60 days – is really paying off. My thanks go to everyone involved in this enormous project to fix council housing.
“It’s taken a great deal of effort to get to this stage, but I know that with the council and HTS continuing to work together we can make that final push in the last couple of months of the financial year to fully clear the backlog and get on top of keeping our homes up to standard.”
