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Failings leave 1,000 Oldham homes unfit
Reporter: LOBBY CORRESPONDENT
Date online: 21/01/2010
MORE than 1,000 homes across Oldham are still unfit to live in — despite a flagship Government pledge to bring them all up to scratch by this year.
Now a watchdog has warned that the decent homes programme will take eight years longer than planned and cost almost twice as much as expected — a total of £37 billion.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said the department for communities and local government (DCLG) had failed to properly work out the costs and failed to monitor progress by local councils and housing associations.
But the DCLG insisted the programme was widely viewed as “a success”, with 92 per cent of homes — more than 1.4 million — brought up to scratch. A £19 billion backlog of repairs, inherited from the Tories, had been tackled, putting in 810,000 new kitchens, 610,000 bathrooms, 1,000,000 windows, central heating systems, rewiring and insulation improvements.
A DCLG spokesman said: “We remain totally committed to completing the decent homes programme and making sure it is fully funded.”.
The NAO report reveals that 305,000 homes — eight per cent of the total — will not have reached the “decent home” standard by the target of the end of this year. Of that number, 1,106 are in Oldham according to DCLG figures.
According to the NAO, the “public service agreement”, announced in 2000, to ensure all local authority properties met “decent” standards by 2010, will not be fulfilled until 2018-19.
Head of the NAO Amyas Morse called for a “reliable funding mechanism” to deliver the remainder of the decent homes programme.
He said: “Hundreds of thousands of families are still living in properties which are not warm, weather tight, or in a reasonable state of repair. The department’s efforts have been undermined by weaknesses in the information it holds.
“There are important lessons here on the benefits of having clear information on programmes when delivery is devolved to a local level.”
Have Your Say
How about getting a job,mortgage and paying your way in life? Too many people are funded by the taxpayer. Who helps me with my mortgage and my upkeep etc? Nobody.....I have to go to work and earn money. Its too easy to milk the state these days.
And we all know which areas in Oldham benefitted under the scheme, and who ended up with their homes being seized and then demolished.
I don't think that Oldhams council are the best people to administer grants schemes as they do not appear to have been run fairly in the past
Yeah like the houses on park road, refurbished under grants and still no one living in them. One house used by workers has only just had the windows blacked out, it pathetic the millions that have been given to house owners who are just waiting for a sale to make profit.
May-be the handout should be to the hard working tax paying, mortgage paying public - just for a change
How many times do you hear the long term unemployed saying " I cannot afford to work"? They want £350 plus a week to compensate their benefits etc. They can look forward to new Kitchens,Windows,Central heating etc, things that are well out of my reach as a working person.
Interesting set of statements: Benefit people get a job! - Easier said than done when there more unemployed than there are jobs - oops and more jobs closures.....
A lot fo these FCHO/Oldham houses have benefit people in, but also WAGE EARNERS! So before you point fingers at the people, think first. If you own your own house, and work, COUNT YOU BLESSING AND SHUT UP!
1000 at about £25000 a pop for repairs to bring them up to standard, a standard that has been negelected over the last 20 -30 years, mind some of building should have been demolished when they were built - they were done so badly! It astounds me that people do not think things through and shout from the roof tops about what they know nothing about!
Wazzarsa, if you are saying my tax contributions are not used to renevate these said properties then fair enough. If my tax is used then I shall air my opinion.
Which areas are these houses in?
By Curly K @ 21/01/2010 14:39:17
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