Brent Council is writing to its tenants and leaseholders after it referred itself to the Housing Regulator in relation to its previous building risk assessment actions.
The Council will tell them what actions they are taking following identification of weaknesses in their management of follow-up actions following the completion of the required checks across its estates. The concerns were identified as part of Brent Council's new Housing Management Plan.
Although tenants and leaseholders do not have to take any action themselves if they have further questions about building, fire safety, asbestos, or gas, electrical and general compliance they should email the teams below:
For
building safety issues: BHMBuildingSafety@brent.gov.uk
For asbestos related issues: housingasbestos@brent.gov.uk
For fire safety related issues: housingfiresafety@brent.gov.uk
For gas, electrical & general compliance issues: complianceteam@brent.gov.uk
Swindown Borough Council has previously referred itself to the Housing Regulator and you can read about the proces son its web page HERE.
The regulatory standards for social housing landlords are set out HERE
UPDATE:
Cllr Lorber has received this response regarding the self-referral after requesting further information:
As it stands I can confirm that fire risk assessments (FRAs) have been carried out on our blocks of flats whether that’s our high-rise blocks or converted street properties.
What we have some concerns with, is actions that are registered as a consequence of an FRA and how they have been closed down on our system, True Compliance, that has been in use for around 2 years.
At present we are carrying out an audit of this process and have appointed an external Health and Safety Consultant to assist with this. Until that audit has been completed I’m not able to say what the situation is on individual blocks but rest assured that we will be working hard to rectify these issues over the coming months and prioritising actions according to risk.
The Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 is a UK law designed to improve the quality, safety, and accountability of social housing, especially in council-owned homes and this act came into forces around this time last year.
In simple terms, the Act gives the Regulator of Social Housing more power to make sure landlords (like us) are doing their jobs properly, keeping homes safe, in good condition, and treating tenants fairly.
Councils are now subject to inspections by the Regulator, much like Ofsted inspections, to check that we meet safety and quality standards in the way that we are delivering our homes. We have not been inspected yet, but we could be at any time, and therefore after finding an issue such as this it is far more advantageous to be proactive, transparent, and accountable hence our self-referral.
2 comments:
I like the "tenants and leaseholders do not have to take any action themselves" in the Council's letter. As if, we're aren't asked but supposed to leave it to brent to correct what it has failed to do properly in the first place.
The Large Panel System high risk towers of South Kilburn, used in 2001 as the 'there is no alternative' reasoning for harsh re-generation/re-development by Brent. Yet in 2025, 3 of the 6 LPS high risk towers are still live 24 years on, a self referal was inevitable.
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