Delay of 16 weeks to fill council houses in the Swadlincote area is 'not right' councillors are told

The four-month average delay to fill vacant council homes in Swadlincote and South Derbyshire has been dubbed "astonishing".

A South Derbyshire District Council meeting last week was told the average length of time to re-let a council house in the area is 125 days.

Allison Thomas, the authority's strategic director for service delivery, said this was a welcome reduction in the average time to re-let a council house, down from 260 days (nearly nine months) early in the pandemic.

Cllr Lisa Brown told the meeting: "If you were running this as a business, you would be bankrupt. It is phenomenal.

"It is the loss of income for this council and vital housing that our residents need. I find it quite astonishing that it is taking so long.

"Something is not quite right."

Kevin Stackhouse, the council's strategic director for corporate resources, said the loss of income from "void" council homes was forecast to hit £450,000.

Ms Thomas said there are often delays in re-letting council homes due to repairs which need to be carried out once tenants leave. Routine works like fire and electricity checks can also cause hold-ups.

She said the council often brings forward upgrades to council homes while they are vacant, such as bathroom and kitchen improvements, to avoid causing disturbance for tenants once they are in properties.

Ms Thomas said: "Though the average is now 125 days, this is still not good enough. We are trying to pull it down to a more reasonable level."

She said: "There are a number of properties that are difficult to let, that are not meeting the needs of those which people on the waiting list want.

"There are a lot of flats but mostly one-bed flats, and we need to look at what stock we have and what it needs to be.

"Some properties are left deliberately vacant for development opportunities."

This debate comes four years after the Local Democracy Reporting Service shared the news that vacant flats in a 24-flat council housing scheme in Midland Road, Swadlincote, were purposefully being left empty.

At the time, the district council's housing services manager, Paul Whittingham, had said this was due to "criminal and antisocial behaviour"

The council owns around 3,000 properties, ranging from one-bed bungalows to bedsits and five-bed houses.