Falkirk council tenants to keep cleaning communal areas to avoid rent increase

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Tenants of Falkirk Council flats will remain responsible for keeping communal areas clean after a report revealed the cost of providing the service would be close to £2 million and would have to come from increased rents.

Members of Falkirk Council's executive heard on Tuesday that a pilot looking at the problem had been inconclusive, so a survey had been done of all council tenants.

The survey asked tenants to consider three options: tenants in flats with communal areas paying for cleaning services; a service being funded by the council through the Housing Revenue Account; or tenants and residents remaining responsible for their own cleaning. READ MORE: Falkirk community events get free pass for traffic management The consultation found that 82.3 per cent of tenants surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that it was the tenants’ responsibility to clean their communal areas.Eighty-two per cent of tenants surveyed also disagreed that a communal cleaning service should be funded from the Housing Revenue Account and not charged to individual tenants.Councillor Gary Bouse, the council's housing and communities spokesperson, said that the result of the survey was clear that tenants believe it is their responsibility to clean the close.He added that it would also be very complicated to charge where there was both council and private ownership.He said: "The cost - £1.7 million - will come from council tenants' rents and people have said 'no' because not everybody lives in a flatted property."The report going to the executive says that cleaning costs an average of £200 per month per block with a communal area.This works out at approximately £7 per week, for each property, and in total, such a scheme would cost more than £1,776,000