Guildford Borough Council to invest £24.5m in council homes' repairs
The council is also set to increase rents by 4.1%
Last updated 12th Jan 2022
A Surrey council is planning to invest £24.5million in its social housing as it catches up on delayed repairs.
Guildford Borough Council’s Executive Advisory Board met on Monday night (10 January) to discuss improvements to the authority’s stock of more than 5,000 council homes.
A 4.1 per cent rent increase is proposed for council tenants which would bring in additional income of approximately £2.7m in 2022-23.
According to council documents, 59 per cent of council tenants are in receipt of either housing benefit or Universal Credit and most will have their rent covered in full by these benefits.
Guildford is one of the last local authorities to fully transition over to Universal Credit, but council documents note that the majority of arrears cases are associated with households who have moved to the all-in-one benefit – making up 68 per cent of those in arrears.
More than 97 per cent of tenants are on social rents and the expected change to their weekly rent on average will be £3.95 for those in 1 bed properties, £4.73 for 2 bed and £5.36 in 3 bed properties.
Guildford Borough Council has 5,251 council houses that the council acts as landlord to, and improvement works will include work to “design out” antisocial behaviour, including improvements to lighting and to car parks.
Also included will be replacing boilers and insulating properties, and improvements to fire doors.
The council’s interim executive head of exchequer, housing and development, Matt Gough, said: “This is an annual report which reflects some of the greatest changes that we’ve seen in social housing for for many, many years.
“The impact of Grenfell is still being felt, the recommendations continue to develop, guidance is still coming forward.
“We’ve had new legislation, of which some is in place, some of which is about to be enacted.”
He confirmed that none of the social houses in Guildford had any cladding that had been flagged as a concern after the Grenfell fire in 2017 which killed 72 people.
Officers confirmed the usual figure for housing repairs was around £5m per year and the £24.5m was a catch up figure due to delays in making improvements over the pandemic.
Last year the council received £207,607 from central government’s Supporting People Grant funding and documents note a further reduction is likely in future years.
Councillor Tony Rooth (Residents for Guildford and Villages, Pilgrims) said there was a risk of people “forgetting” about social housing outside of the people at the council tasked with looking after it.
He responded to comments in the officers’ report that the wider social housing sector is becoming increasingly commercial, with some housing associations aiming to minimise risk by being selective about who they house.
Cll Rooth said: “It’s always worrying to me personally about comments that the wider social housing sector is becoming increasingly commercial with commercial rent.
“Although we have our own stock, unlike many other authorities, it’s always a challenge to maintain our stock as what I call fully, properly social housing stock.”
The borough council’s executive will meet on Thursday January 25.