Council found in breach of Home Standard with one in five fire inspections overdue and 1,500+ homes going without electrical safety inspection for 10 years

Adur District Council has breached the Home Standard with the potential for serious detriment to tenants, the Regulator of Social Housing has found.

The Regulator published a regulatory notice in relation to Adur yesterday (10 May 2023), following a self-referral by the district council in February.

The notice confirmed that the council did not meet a range of health and safety requirements in all its tenants’ homes.

Almost one in five fire inspections were overdue, more than 1,500 homes had not had an electrical safety inspection in 10 years and more than 1,500 homes did not have a working smoke alarm. The council did not have full or accurate data on compliance with the Decent Homes Standard.

The Regulator said Adur had started to put in place a programme to put things right including completing outstanding health and safety checks and starting new stock condition surveys. The regulator will “monitor the council’s progress closely as it carries out this work”.

Kate Dodsworth, Director of Consumer Regulation at RSH, said: “Adur District Council has put its tenants at potential risk by failing to carry out all necessary health and safety checks and failing to provide all homes with working smoke alarms. The council referred itself to us when it identified these issues, and we are monitoring it closely as it takes urgent action to put things right.”

In response to the regulatory notice Adur said: “We understand the work we need to do and have created a new programme of health and safety checks and property surveys. Staff from the regulator will now work with our teams as we tackle the identified problems.”

Cllr Carson Albury, Adur's Cabinet Member for Adur Homes and Customer Services, said: “Everyone living in our properties deserves to have a good, safe and secure home and we are committed to working with the regulator and our residents to make this a reality.

“I'm grateful to the regulator for the speed with which it has reviewed our referral and we welcome its scrutiny as we work to resolve our issues.

“We have been, and will continue to be, open and transparent with the regulator about the challenges that have developed in our social housing.”

The council acknowledged that much of the housing it manages was built more than 50 years ago and needed a lot of investment to bring it up to standard. “However, years of rent restrictions imposed by the government means there has been, and continues to be, insufficient funding to pay for the work required in Adur.

“We accept that this has meant we have not invested and improved our homes in the way we should have done for a number of years.”

The council said it would continue to carry out repairs and improvement work on its properties, focusing on prioritising health and safety issues. “We have written to all of our tenants and leaseholders explaining the situation, apologising for not having always provided a good service and committing to working hard to do better.”