I have welcomed news that the City Council has, after an options appraisal, finally decided to renovate a badly damaged council house in Polepark Road and bring it back into the tenancy pool.
The property has sat empty since it was abandoned in August 2008 and I have been in contact with the Housing Department to query why it had been left empty so long.
The City Housing Manager has now updated me as follows :
“As promised here is the outcome of the Options Appraisal exercise.
We explored two options and determined that the optimal approach was to refurbish the property - combining specialist timber treatment and solum works with planned capital investment (kitchen/bathroom/heating) and normal relet repairs - with a view to offering it to mainstream waiting list clients.
The other option was to carry out essential specialist remedial works only, secure the property and remove it from the Housing Revenue Account on the grounds that the investment in refurbishing doesn't represent value for money.”
I am pleased that the Housing Department has finally decided to do the necessary work to get this property back into use as this will help house someone on the waiting list, but the question remains as to why it was left such a long time sitting empty.
At the last Scrutiny Committee of the City Council, I expressed concern that the time taken for reletting houses under the SNP administration is getting worse. In the 6 months to 30th September 2009, the average time to relet a council house was 74.5 days; it had worsened by the 6 months to 30th September 2010 to 98.7 days.
I was assured that effort was being made to improve matters and get average relet time down to 65 days – but the Housing Department seemed not to know when this target will be met. I have asked for an update on progress on this as getting empty houses re-let quicker must be a priority for the Housing Department.