THE Regulator of Social Housing has today published its view of how well Harlow Council is meeting regulatory standards when it comes to managing its housing.

In response to the assessment, Councillor Dan Swords, Leader of Harlow Council, said:

“The introduction of the Social Housing Regulator in March is an extremely welcome step to improve the quality of social housing. The Regulator uses a grading system – ranging from C1 to C4 with 1 being the highest and 4 being the lowest.

“This was the first time councils across the country had to report to the Regulator on a huge variety of tenant satisfaction measures. Unfortunately, we have seen very large number of councils falling short on some of those measures and being graded with a C3 rating.

“On nearly every tenant satisfaction measure Harlow performed well, although we are taking clear steps to drive improvement across the board. However, on one measure – the number of fire risk assessments that had been carried out in our flat blocks – we performed very badly. As a result of this shortcoming, the Regulator has awarded Harlow, like many other councils, a C3 grading. This does not mean Harlow’s flat blocks are unsafe, there is no ACM (Grenfell style-cladding) or anything of the like and tenants should be reassured of that.

“This historic issue has not been dealt with well or quickly enough by the council. For several years, we have not carried out enough fire risk assessments and that is why this moment will be a very clear turning point.

“We are already working closely with the Regulator to make specific improvements against these new requirements, and we are making rapid progress to that effect.

“We will also bring forward an Action Plan which will be considered by the Cabinet at the very first opportunity to ensure we are taking every step necessary to right this historic failure.

“I am absolutely confident that as a result of the actions we have already put in place and those which are to be considered by the Cabinet, we will resolve this issue and at the next round of review, the council will not be in a C3 position.

“All Harlow Council tenants should know that the whole Cabinet and I take this matter extremely seriously. That’s why one of our corporate missions is to Transform Harlow’s housing and we will leave no stone unturned to ensure we deliver on that mission.

“This action comes on top of many others we are already taking to transform our council housing including the 100% specialist stock condition survey of all our properties, the fact we have cleared the backlog in repairs which are now at the lowest level in well over a decade, introduced proactive Tenancy Audit Inspections of council properties, totally overhauled the way we deal with damp and mould and reformed the way we allocate council housing to name just a few.”