I was chuffed to find out that the Southwark Council Stock Condition report, which has been in the offing for 18months, has finally announced its results.

It transpires that instead of 53% of Southwark’s council homes meeting or exceeding the Decent Homes standards, in fact 65.3% meet or exceed these standards and with the budget the Lib Dems set in place for this year it will should be close to 70% by financial year end. The progress is slow as we consulted all housing forums to ask whether we should fix lots of properties with small problems first or fix the small number of properties with major problems and the worst living conditions. Resident feedback was to fix the worst first. Unfortunately these are clearly the most expensive. So it is slow work even when we were spending £80M a year!

This Stock Condition report was one outcome of closing the previously separate Housing Directorate which is now being recreated under a Labour led Southwark Council. The old housing department was clearly out of control to not even know the state of Southwarks properties with any accuracy. Whether the new Housing Director is needed or not is a mute point. But we can say things dramatically better than they were.