Sandwell Council Poised to Award £1.5m Contract for Housing Condition Surveys

Following a critical review, Sandwell Council is set to allocate over £2.4 million for the inspection of numerous council properties within the area. The council intends to grant a £1.5 million contract for surveying 14,000 residences, prompted by an inspection conducted earlier this year that revealed the authority possessed current records regarding property standards for only 5% of its housing stock. The council’s cabinet is scheduled to convene on Wednesday to approve the contract for consultants Ridge and Partners. This firm previously secured an £855,000 contract in August to conduct surveys on 9,000 houses. These surveys are designed to identify issues such as damp, mould, asbestos, structural problems, and various other potential hazards. In October, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) assigned a C3 grade to the Labour-run council, indicating that the authority had not complied with new consumer standards. Its record-keeping practices were specifically highlighted as deficient. The RSH inspection also revealed that the council was contending with a substantial backlog of 14,000 repairs, with over 90 percent of these yet to be allocated. Furthermore, the regulator noted that precise and current information was accessible for merely 5% of the council’s properties, and asbestos surveys and subsequent re-inspections had been performed on only 2% of the properties. This marked the initial grading of the local authority since the implementation of the new consumer standard regulations in April. According to the council cabinet report, Ridge and Partners are considered “familiar with the council’s stock” due to their ongoing work from the August contract, which is expected to “significantly reduce start-up time” for the new agreement. The condition of Sandwell’s council houses was a subject of cabinet discussion over two years prior, at which time the authority’s difficulty in monitoring the state of its properties was characterized as “challenging” and “significantly compromised”. This report was compiled by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, an entity that covers local government bodies and other public service organizations. For further updates, follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X, and Instagram. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC disclaims responsibility for the content found on external websites. Information regarding our external linking policy is available for review.