Kirklees council found non-compliant over 20,000 overdue fire safety actions

A Yorkshire council has been judged non-compliant with a regulatory standard after the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) found it had 20,000 fire remedial actions “overdue”

Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council, which manages around 22,000 homes, referred itself to RSH after it found it had failed to meet health and safety requirements.

The subsequent RSH investigation found 20,000 fixes identified in fire risk assessments - including 200 deemed “high-risk” - had not been carried out in the timeframe required by the council’s own policy.

RSH also found there were more than 1,500 uncompleted repairs relating to damp and mould, and more than 1,000 of these were classed as high-risk, taking into account the needs of tenants living in the homes and the length of time the works were overdue.

The RSH notice said: “Taking into account the seriousness of the issues, the duration that tenants were exposed to risk, and the number of tenants potentially affected, the regulator has concluded that Kirklees MBC has breached the home standard and that there was a risk of serious detriment to tenants during this period.”

RSH said the council has “demonstrated that it now understands its responsibilities” and is taking action to complete the overdue fire safety actions and tackle damp and mould.

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Moses Crook, cabinet member for housing at Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council, said: “Over the next few months, we will be recruiting more staff to help increase the pace of delivery across both damp, mould and condensation and fire safety improvements.

“We have several programmes of work already in delivery to resolve actions identified through fire risk assessments and are developing further schemes to address the remainder.”