Council questioned over its ability to bring housing in Milton Keynes up to modern standards

An estimated 13 per cent of council homes in Milton Keynes are currently failing to meet government standards – three times the national average of 4 per cent.

Housing campaigner David Lee told a meeting that he was “very pleased” that the council had made progress in reducing the non-decency rate from 35 per cent.

“At 13 per cent the council is still behind the national average,” said Mr Lee, the secretary of Residents of Regeneration Estates (RoRE) at the community and housing scrutiny committee.

“You have probably picked the low hanging fruit and it will be more difficult to bring the numbers down.”

He urged the council to “keep going” and asked whether plans to spend £165 million on repairs would be enough.

The money will be coming from the housing revenue account, which is paid for by tenants’ rents.

In reply Cllr Emily Darlington (Lab, Bletchley East), the council’s portfolio holder for housing and public realm, said it was a question she had been asking, too. She’s due to make a spending decision in September.

“Our goal should be 4 per cent, or even better,” she said.

Earlier in the day Cllr Darlington took a decision to extend the council’s repair and maintenance contract with housing firm Mears by three years to March 2024. The contract extension has a value of £129 million.

The meeting also heard that the two year-old contract has had a slow start. First the council had to build up its internal team. Then, this year Mears furloughed half of its staff because of covid-19, and still has people due to come out of shielding in August.

And because of covid restrictions the company has been unable to send its employees into people’s houses to carry out non emergency work on bathrooms and kitchens.

There’s also a backlog of 2,500-3,000 jobs for them to catch up, with some tenants refusing to let them in.

The amount of money being spent this year has been reduced from a hoped-for £33 million to £24.3 million.

Peter Baldwin, the managing director of Mears, told the meeting he was confident the company would be able to complete the £24 million of work. And he even hoped to be able to apply for more of the budget later this year.

And Michael Kelleher, the council’s director of housing, said he too is confident of being able to achieve targets.

And he said reducing the number of non-decent homes from 35 per cent to 13 per cent is a “significant achievement”.