Greenwich council has “backlog” of 370 homes that need to be fixed

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

A council will have to spend almost £2m repairing 370 empty homes so residents can live in them.

Greenwich council said there was a “backlog” of homes needing to be fixed after work was paused during the pandemic.

Speaking at a meeting last week, council officer Akosua Boachie said work on empty homes was “slow-moving”.

On behalf of the head of accounting for the council, she said: “The Covid lockdown resulted in a backlog of void properties [empty council homes] and numbers have remained around the 370 mark.

“Work is being done, it’s slowly making progress but the voids are still presenting a problem at the moment, which is adding to the overspend.”

The overspending on empty council homes is part of a wider £4m deficit in council funds ringfenced for housing.

Councillor David Gardner said he was “struggling to get to grips” with the figure, and didn’t see why work on repairing the homes didn’t fully resume after lockdown.

He added: “Having this loss in revenue in voids, and because of this extra time it’s taken us to turn around voids and ensure they are occupied, means our direct labour costs have gone up by significantly above budget.”

The meeting heard that the cost of fixing the empty homes was predicted to rise by 10 per cent, and spending on subcontractors for the project was anticipated to increase by 24 per cent.

Councillor Pat Slattery said that three new subcontractors had been brought in for the work this month, and that inflation had made the fixed cost for long-term contractors “uneconomic for them”.

Pictured top: The Woolwich Centre in Greenwich, where the council meets (Picture: Google Street View)