Edinburgh City Council is set to overhaul how it deals with council housing repairs, following numerous complaints over repair delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Ahead of the council’s homeless and housing committee on Thursday, SNP/Labour coalition councillors have lodged a motion which will ask officers to present them with detailed reports, outlining what improvements can be made to the repairs service.
The motion also makes specific reference to damp, which has been a common cause of complaints among council housing tenants in Edinburgh for some time.
The motion calls on council officers to produce a second report, which would specifically outline the problems with dealing with damp and mould, and to set out a process for dealing with these issues.
Convenor of the housing and homelessness committee, Kate Campbell, said: “Getting our repairs service right for tenants is an absolute priority.
“It’s been a tough year for everyone. We’re enormously grateful to all of our staff who have put themselves at risk to deliver an essential repairs service, and for the work that has gone into planning to make sure that our tenants, and our staff, are as safe as they possibly can be.
“But it’s also important that as the restrictions lessen, we move back to working in a way that delivers the absolute best service that we can for tenants.
“That means making sure that our processes are working well, and that where there are issues we’ve got a plan to resolve them.
“And particularly when it comes to cases of damp, mould or condensation we need to make sure that we have a process that goes from start to finish, addressing the cause of the problem, and dealing with reinstatement of homes.
“This has been much harder under current restrictions, but we want to make it easy and straightforward for tenants to get repairs completed, and put the support in place so that we can make people’s homes safe, warm and comfortable for them.”
