Council tenants can now track how long repairs will take online

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An interactive self-service system for council tenants is to be rolled out to help householders find out how long they will have to wait for repairs and refurbishments.Housing staff are developing the system for the new financial year starting in April.The announcement was made during the budget meeting which agreed spending on the council’s rolling refurbishment programme.The new budget agreed this week has £43,687m set aside for refurbishment programmes to the housing stock.Of that £22m will be spent on kitchen and bathroom upgrades in the next five years.Housing legislation requires the council to upgrade the kitchens and bathrooms in around 350 homes per year.

The refurbishment programme is an ongoing one but was stalled badly by the local down and pandemic restrictions in terms of access to homes.However speaking at the budget meeting Graeme Struthers, depute chief executive responsible for housing said that the programme was back on trackIndependent councillor Stuart Borrowman, who was first elected 20 years ago, questioned the criteria for the improvement programmes.He asked officials: “In terms of the kitchen and bathrooms upgrades, the previous programme was initiated before I was a councillor.

I’m guessing quite a few of our kitchen and bathrooms are showing signs of wear and tear. I also understand that lockdown and working from home may have added to the stress on these.”Councillor Borrowman asked: “When would tenants begin to know in what financial year they are likely to be recipients of upgrades.”Marjory Mackie, Housing Strategy and Development Manager said: “We are working on that at the moment and pulling together a communications strategy.