New kitchen and bathroom? No thanks – Tenants refuse Decent Homes' refurbishment

Published: 25 February 2010
by RICHARD OSLEY

BACKBENCH councillors have uncovered a series of revelations about the state of the Town Hall’s massive council homes refurbishment programme, including a startling statistic that 20 per cent of tenants are refusing to let workmen through their door.

One senior official appearing in front of a scrutiny committee on Monday admitted that the refusal rate was noticeably higher than in other areas of the country. Although the Decent Homes project is supposed to be a far-reaching upgrade of estates, giving residents new kitchens and bathrooms, a fifth of tenants are turning away workmen at the front door.

David Hucker, the council’s head of interim renewals, said: “The re­fusal rate for access is quite high. In the last local authority I worked in it was less than ten per cent.”

Labour councillor Pat Callaghan told Lib Dem housing chief Councillor Chris Naylor: “You need to ask why it’s so high. Talk to the community. People are fuming with the way the work is being done in their homes.”

About 500 homes are being improved every month, with the majority of tenants happy with the work, according to the council. The example of the Tybalds estate in Holborn is regularly used as a positive case study.

But horror stories about standards continue to do the rounds across Camden’s estates. At Monday’s meeting councillors warned that residents remain fearful of the home refits.
The meeting also heard:
• Council homes are still being sold to pay for the Decent Homes project.
• The district auditor has been asked to examine the sales process.
• Private buyers of Camden’s council homes have in some cases made more than 40 per cent profit by quickly selling them on.
• The new Decent Homes kitchens cost £2,000 less than first estimated. Anti-sell-off protesters say this negates the need to raise money by flogging more homes.

Candy Udwin, from pressure group Defend Council Housing, told housing chiefs: “Surely, the sales should be put on hold until you know whether this is a waste of council resources? The issue has gone to the district auditor and he is seeing if this is value for money.”

Labour councillor Roger Robinson added: “We are scared stiff that these sell-offs are the end of social housing as we know it.”

Conservative councillor Chris Philp, who has chaired the committee for the past four years, has already called for an investigation into why developers have seemed to be able to make large profits on homes once owned by the council. He now wants officials to probe why so many tenants do not want the work which those sales are funding. “Twenty per cent is an extraordinary figure,” he said. “It suggest there is a serious problem and we need to find out what that is.”

Cllr Naylor said that in about 500 cases there were question marks about who had refused access to workmen and whether they were the proper tenants.
“We are sending investigators in to see if the right people are living in our homes,” he said.

Press officials later said Mr Hucker’s quote of 20 per cent applied only to first queries and that people often later changed their minds or found a more suitable date for the work.

Cllr Naylor said: “People are generally happy with Decent Homes. It’s a mixed picture but we are getting better at it after some teething.”

He said that, in the absence of government investment, Camden must sell council homes to refurbish the rest. “We are desperate to catch up on an awful backlog of work and we need to keep the flow of money. I have to keep reassuring the contractors we can pay our bills,” he added.