LETTER: We await Brent Council's strategy to inform tenants & leaseholders of their Improvement Plan following Social Housing Regulator C3 judgement

 Dear Editor,

Further to my letter of September 10^th LINK.

 

As of the 1st September 2025, the council claim that all outstanding fire risk action in all of their high rises has been addressed, after they were self-referred to the regulator by Brent Council.

 

The council claim they are making good progress towards meeting all the safety compliance standards identified by the regulator and are working on an Improvement Plan to rectify all the compliance issues.

 

They also claim they have been keeping tenants and leaseholders fully informed about the progress they are making with the plan, but I have not seen any evidence so far that supports their claim.

 

However, the council report that they have set up a multi-channel engagement strategy to communicate with residents over their response to the regulator’s judgement.  One of the key components of the strategy will give us an update on the new repairs contract, as all the costs of meeting the compliance standards are coming from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget which includes repairs.

 

I assume this new strategy replaces the Tenants and Resident Engagement strategy that was implemented in 2024.

 

Cllr. Donnelly-Jackson is working on an E-newsletter in which she will provide an update of all the progress the council have made since their self-referral to the regulator at the end of April 2025.

 

As for how much this will cost, the council have not worked it out yet, but it will be at least a million but probably a lot more.   The council also report that they are facing ever increasing costs of Major Works, which is likely to affect leaseholders who have to pay a share of the costs.

 

John

 

(Name and address supplied)