CWAC moves up timeline for council housing takeover

The local authority is looking to replace ForHousing as the manager of its 5,300 council homes next year after the housing association said it did not have the money required to continue services past March.

Cheshire West and Chester Council will deliberate on the issue at its cabinet meeting on 12 August.

The discussion builds on a decision made last month to take over the management of the authority’s council homes from ForHousing. This followed a consultation exercise with the tenants of the council homes, who voiced their overall support for the management of the houses to be done in-house by the council.

At the time of the July vote, the council was to begin managing the homes once the current 10-year contract with ForHousing ended in June 2027.

Now, however, ForHousing is looking to offload the management of the homes more than a year ahead of schedule.

ForHousing cited an increase in costs regarding changing regulatory requirements as the primary factor, according to a council report.

The council between ForHousing and CWAC had been signed in 2017 – which was prior to the implementation of Awaab’s Law, which puts a statutory timescale in place to solve damp and mould issues. The group also listed the possible changes to the Decent Homes Standards and the Regulator of Social Housing’s Competence and Conduct standard as other factors that are driving up costs and increasing the number of maintenance requests made.

“As a consequence of the changing regulatory requirements, [ForHousing] has seen an increase in both the demand and cost of providing the required services, and they have stated that they do not believe they can fully maintain services over the remaining contract term,” a council report states.

For perspective, CWAC officers estimated that it will cost up to £10m over the next four years for the council to address current demands and the maintenance backlog on the properties.

Cllr Christine Warner, cabinet member for homes and planning at CWAC, described her position on moving up the timescale for the council housing takeover.

“Given the changed housing environment, to require the current provider to continue delivering services until 2027 risks a decline in quality for our tenants,” she stated. “Because of that, we need to take action now to protect these services.

“Our tenants will always remain our priority, and we will be working hard with ForHousing to ensure that any disruption is kept to a minimum,” she continued.

“Bringing these services back into the council in a shorter time frame will be challenging, but having closely assessed our options and discussed this with our provider, we are certain that this will best serve tenants, homeless people, and others accessing our housing services with a modern, fit-for-purpose service.”

ForHousing declined to comment on the story.