Camden property chief quizzed about housing repairs following tenant satisfaction survey

An opposition councillor has questioned the council over a tenant satisfaction survey that showed Camden falls below the London average in the time it takes to address emergency repairs.

The survey, conducted by analytics firm Housemark, found that 15 per cent of emergency repairs on council properties were not carried out on time.

The figure is 2.3 per cent higher than the London average.

Gavin Haynes, the director of property for Camden, said the figure is “to do with IT [systems] not synchronising… which meant the council couldn’t demonstrate that repairs were being reporting on time”.

The survey investigated “22 standard measures” of tenant satisfaction, and is a legal requirement of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.

It is the first time such a survey has been carried out in Camden.

More than 1,400 council tenants took part, including people living in social and sheltered housing and temporary accommodation.

Haynes said there may be a couple of years of teething problems with the data collection, and that “London boroughs have this trend of lower scores due to the density of stock overcrowding”.

Liberal Democrat and leader of the opposition, Cllr Tom Simon, responded: “The London average isn’t presenting a satisfactory level generally, and I’d hope in Camden that we’d hope to surpass that, considering that it’s at a fairly low level.”

Simon expressed “concern” at the 58 per cent satisfaction rate for the time taken to conduct repair work, and the 35.6 per cent rate for the council’s approach to handling complaints.

Haynes replied: “We are going to try, this year, to get that performance to be better.”