THOUSANDS of council tenants are being asked to give their views on the housing services provided by Leicester City Council.
In the financial year 2019/20, the city council has spent £24.5million in providing services for tenants of its 20,000+ properties across the city, in addition to £25million it has invested on physical improvements to these homes.
Services provided by the council include repairing and maintenance its properties, dealing with reports of antisocial behaviour, managing its tenancies, re-letting empty properties, collecting the rent, and managing council housing estates.
Now people are being asked to share their views on what they think of the services the city council provides to maintain and improve council homes and estates, as well as putting forward suggestions for improvement.
The survey is open to people living in rented council accommodation, as well as private rented sector tenants and homeowners. It will run from February 17 to March 29, 2020.
Leicester assistant city mayor for housing, Cllr Elly Cutkelvin, said: “We have invested almost £50million in recent years to make some significant improvements, both to council homes and the surrounding estates, with further investment planned over the coming years to continue that work.
“These measures have helped improve the quality of people’s homes and communal areas, to make them safer, more pleasant places to live, and by ensuring we address the needs of residents.
“This survey gives people across the city a chance to have their say on the work that we are doing and the services we provide, as well as what they want to see from us in future.
“We want to use that feedback to help plan future services, improvements to local areas and identify what people see as priorities for spending in the years ahead.”
A total of £24.5million was spent in ongoing repairs and maintenance to the council’s stock of more than 20,000 homes in the last year.
A further £25million was invested in installing new central heating boilers, providing new kitchens and bathrooms, re-wiring properties and re-roofing council properties. About £750,000 of that was also used to upgrade fire safety and improve communal areas, such as improving parking, resurfacing courtyards and installing better security.
Ongoing investment will also take place to ensure council housing represents good quality accommodation and estates provide welcoming and attractive places to live. This includes an additional £5million which is due to be made available over the next three years to make further improvements on certain city estates, subject to the budget being approved at the next meeting of Full Council, at the Town Hall, on February 19.
Latest figures show the city council is responsible for 20,830 council properties – meaning roughly one in six homes in the city is a council property.