All councils that still own properties are required to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard by 2010. The aim of this standard is to make sure that all social landlords maintain their properties to the same uniform standard and it also specifies what work should be carried out at what frequency.

To meet this standard, which has been set by the Government, all homes must:

• meet the current legal minimum standard for housing
  This means that it must be fit to live in as defined by the law.
  
• be in a reasonable state of repair
  A home would fail this criteria if, for example, one or more of its major parts, such as its roof or its windows, exceeded the stated lifespan and, because of their condition, needed replacement.
  
• have reasonably modern facilities and services
  If a home lacked three of the applicable reasonably modern facilities or services, it would fail this criteria.
  
• provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort
  This means that your home must have effective insulation and efficient heating.

The Council has to put in place arrangements to get all its homes up to this minimum standard and put right any outstanding repairs and then maintain all properties to this standard for future years.

A survey to assess the condition of the homes owned by the Council took place in 2002. Not all our properties were surveyed but enough of the different types of property were looked at to give us a reliable overall picture and the results of this are used to plan major maintenance and improvement works needed to meet the Decent Homes Standard.

For more information, please see our planned maintenance web page if you are a tenant or our consulting you web page if you are a leaseholder.