Birmingham Council tenants ‘let down’ as 40,000 kitchen and bathroom replacements needed

Birmingham City Council said it needed to undertake “unprecedented levels of investment” in its housing stock over the next seven years to fully comply with the decent homes standard.

The government benchmark states all social housing should be in a reasonable state of repair and have reasonably modern facilities.

According to government-appointed commissioners, sent in to oversee the Labour-run council’s recovery, around 70 per cent of the council’s housing stock was currently “non-decent”.

The council pledged the situation would dramatically improve as a result of a huge investment being made, a significant proportion of which was being directed towards kitchen and bathroom replacement programmes.

A report said the authority needed to replace just over 22,000 kitchens and around 18,000 bathrooms in council homes over the next four years – a total of about 40,000.

Opposition councillors said it was a sign of the underinvestment in the authority’s housing stock in recent years.

“Tenants of Birmingham have been let down by the city council for a decade of failure to maintain council houses,” Coun Robert Alden, Conservative group leader, said. “It is welcome that tenants will finally get their failing bathrooms and kitchens replaced.

“It should never have been allowed to get to the situation that over 40,000 kitchens and bathrooms needed replacing at one time.”

Coun Bruce Lines, shadow cabinet member for housing and homelessness, added: “After over a decade of neglect and underinvestment, it will take years to undo the damage.”

Roger Harmer, leader of the Liberal Democrats at the council, told a cabinet meeting this week: “What we’re effectively saying is there are thousands of people who desperately need new bathrooms and kitchens who will have to wait another three or four years before they actually get them.”

On the majority of council homes not meeting the decent homes standard, Coun Jayne Francis, the cabinet member for housing, previously said more issues were being encountered as stock condition surveys were conducted.

She said last year: “It will take time to turn that corner and we’re making a huge investment in this city to make sure those houses are brought into good ownership”.

Paul Langford, strategic director of city housing, added recently there had been an underinvestment in homes in the city for more than a decade and the council would soon begin to see the decency figures moving in the right direction.

Coun Rob Pocock, the cabinet member overseeing the council’s transformation, said during this week’s meeting there would now be a “massive amount of investment”.

The cabinet also heard the council had plans to ensure a supply chain was in place for the bathroom and kitchen replacements.

“Tenants will benefit,” Coun Pocock said. “This is a big transformation in the way we ensure we deliver that decent homes standard.”

Commissioners said they welcomed the council’s approach to “ensure they have a comprehensive supply chain in place to meet their demand and to proactively manage supply risk”.

“It is important that BCC has the appropriate oversight and governance in place to ensure contracts are managed effectively to deliver good high quality and cost-effective kitchens and bathrooms as required,” they said.