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Repairs and vital safety checks could be put on hold due to coronavirus
Landlords and social housing figures have raised concerns over the effect coronavirus could have on repair works and vital gas and fire safety checks.
Landlords and contractors have told Inside Housing that as workforces are diminished and more tenants are forced into self-isolation due to the outbreak, landlords will have to prioritise emergency repair works leading to a potential repairs backlog.
A spokesperson for Clarion, which provides homes for 350,000 people, said: “We are currently operating a normal service, but if more frontline staff are unable to work due to illness or self-isolation, our primary focus will be to carry out any emergency repairs that are needed to keep residents safe.”
Wates, one of the sector’s biggest contractors to carry building repairs for councils and housing associations, said that it has provided advice to colleagues on how to minimise the risk of infection.
It also said that if the firm is impacted more directly it could take steps such as “limiting access to sites and offices and adopting flexible working practices as necessary”.
Construction giant Kier, which has maintenance contracts with several housing associations, said it is “ready to implement business continuity plans if necessary”.
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Alistair McIntosh, chief executive of the Housing Quality Network, said that many maintenance contractors he had spoken to said they have not been “brought into the picture” on the changes to working arrangements being planned by housing associations.
Keith Simpson, chair of the Direct Works Forum, which represents associations and councils that deliver their own repairs and maintenance works, said that it was a “unique situation” and said he had never known a repairs scale-back of this magnitude in his whole career.
He suggested that cutting down on non-emergency repair works would create a major backlog of repairs for landlords to deal with.
Eamon McGoldrick, managing director of the National Federation of ALMOs, agreed that a repairs backlog is “inevitable” and said “hundreds if not thousands” of repairs could pile up.
He also noted that if more workers are forced to self-isolate, then those in charge of conducting repair works would more have to rely more heavily on costly agency staff.
Mr McGoldrick also said that there are also implications around compliance with landlords required to complete annual checks aspects, such as fire and gas safety, asbestos, lifts and legionella.
Donna McCarthy, partner at law firm Devonshires, said there was a chance that some landlords would be unable to carry out vital checks such as gas safety checks on boilers, which must be completed every 12 months.
Mr McGoldrick said: “We will be saying to the regulator that we should be given some flexibility around checks.”
Both Ms McCarthy and Mr McGoldrick stressed the importance of landlords communicating clearly with residents at a time when checks and repair works may be put on hold.
The English regulator said on Wednesday that it would “take account of the circumstances, including those arising from the impact of coronavirus, in considering our response to non-compliance or potential non-compliance with the standards”.
It follows a similar call from the Scottish Housing Regulator, which said it would account for the effects of coronavirus when carrying out its annual risk assessments.
