Decent Homes

Giving people homes that are decent to live in, within communities where they feel safe, secure and happy, must be central to our mission over the next four years. When Labour took control of the council in 2002, some tenants were living in homes that hadn’t been improved since the day there were built - where repairs hadn’t been carried out and which were hard to keep warm, windows were rotting and falling out and bathrooms were in a state of disrepair.

Things have changed dramatically over the past four years, however. Now, every estate across the ward has had some Decent Homes works done. Buckland Court has new windows, doors and bathrooms, Haberdasher Estate has had new doors and windows, as has Aske House and much of the Arden Estate. Now Wenlock Barn Estate has seen work begin on Brackyln Court, Evelyn Court and Napier Court and scaffolding has gone up on Cropley Court.

The Decent Homes programme is making a difference to the lives of tenants across the ward putting us on course to reduce the number of non-decent properties.

But the programme has not just been about improvements to homes it has resulted in greater involvement of tenants in decision making about their homes; it has created training and employment opportunities; and has stimulated improvement in housing services and will continue to do so as the programme does even more work.

We are mindful of the inconvenience that this work can cause and are working hard to improve the speed of the works to minimise this for residents. We have been speaking to the Manager of the Decent Homes Programme for Shoreditch about making it easier to make comments without having to come along to an Estate Committee meeting. You can post your comments on this blog about how best this can be done.

So far 332 new doors have been fitted to properties and 215 new kitchens and bathrooms installed.