Birmingham council's decent homes budget looks set for further cuts after it unveiled part of its housing spending for the year ahead.
The local authority plans to invest almost £25m in day-to-day repairs in 2004/05 – about £1m more than was budgeted during 2003/4.

Yet the council has already cut money from its £40m decent homes budget, in order to get rid of its repairs backlog by April this year (HT 12 December 2003, page 15).

The full budget is scheduled to be confirmed within the next two weeks. The amount committed to decent homes for 2004/5 is likely to inform the council's stock options study, due in by July 2005.

David Hucker, Birmingham council's senior housing manager, indicated that the council has accepted it will need extra cash to fill the gap between its spending and the £500m he estimates is needed to meet the standard.

However, he said the council had moved closer to meeting its performance improvement plan.

"All properties that become empty will be repaired or improved as necessary for re-letting at the earliest opportunity. We are setting a target of 30 days for normal re-lets, down from 38 days this year," Hucker said.

Source

Housing Today