Resident Questions for Housing Area Panel
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Question Title |
Remit of Estate Walkabouts |
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Date question raised |
15/12/2022 |
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Week of Area Panel |
13/2/2023 |
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Area in city |
West |
|
Star rating applied by residents |
3 stars – city wide |
|
Deadline for officer response |
9am on 19th January |
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Name of officer responding |
Marcus Richardson |
|
Officer job title |
Quality Assurance Manager, Housing |
|
Issue: |
West residents are concerned that Estate Walkabouts, unlike the previous Estate Inspections, do not include the interior of buildings. |
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Background: |
None supplied. |
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Action requested: |
Interior of buildings to be included in Estate Walkabouts |
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Officer contact details: |
Marcus.richardson@brighton-hove.gov.uk |
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Officer Response: |
The Estate Walkabouts are focused on identifying what environmental improvements can be delivered to estates across the city to help improve overall satisfaction for residents. The focus is on items like planters/planting, seating, bike storage or bin stores etc. This is due to there being other capital investment programmes that concentrate on delivery of external and internal repairs and decoration to the Council’s housing stock.
The Council conducts internal surveys of council blocks for our internal decoration programme which runs every year, but as we have over 1,200 properties with communal areas, we aren’t able to survey every block on a yearly basis. When these surveys of blocks are conducted, the information we collect is just a snapshot of the condition at that time and can change rapidly dependant on external factors of the building and resident use, and we have prioritised the external elements of the blocks in a good state of repair, as leaking roofs or penetrating damp affect the internal areas of the blocks more than daily use by residents. We also carry out multiple other visits to the common ways of blocks on a regular basis, such as fire risk assessments and communal electrical testing, and any immediate issues within blocks are reported following these visits as well for action.
In addition, the council will start later this year carrying out stock condition surveys of blocks across the city, these surveys will be a rolling piece of work and will record the current condition of the housing stock and will go towards planning future years’ capital investment programmes such as internal decorations.
If there are specific blocks that residents have questions or concerns about, we will happily arrange for a survey and feedback the information/condition collected and give an indication of when the internal decoration is due to happen. Please email hiamenquiries@brighton-hove.gov.uk
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Action: |
None |
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Start date: |
N/A |
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End date: |
N/A |