Modernisation Aim In Councils £10m Kitchen And Bathroom Spending Increase

The Executive Board will meet next week to approve £23,500,000 of spending on Council Housing. The proposed budget has increased from £13.1 million for 2012/13.

One target stated is the Welsh Housing Quality Standard, which provides a standardised target for the provision of social housing in Wales. Wrexham Council are meant to achieve this by 2020, however the report says “It has been recognised that this is not achievable following the ‘No’ vote for stock transfer in 2004 and our limited amount of available finance.”

The ‘key elements’ of the standard that will be worked towards is stated as targeting:

• Modern kitchens and bathrooms.
• Wind and watertight properties.
• Fuel and energy efficient properties.
• Improving the environment in which the tenants live.

The main increases in the budget are for kitchen and bathroom improvements and replacements, which together now total over £10,000,000 rather than £1.6 million in the previous budget. This is specified as including new kitchens, new floor covering, tiling and electrical work for an estimated 2,100 kitchens.

We have graphed out the proposed spending changes below, however its worth noting that the ECO funding goes from £0 to £400,000. The report states “This is the Council’s potential contribution towards external wall insulation and the North Wales Regional Procurement Framework. It is envisaged that this money will attract additional sums from energy providers of up to £3 million per annum.”

Details of methodology of deciding which properties get what work carried out are also given, for example all boilers have a record, so older ones of a certain type could be replaced first. The kitchen and bathroom replacement schemes will be prioritised initially via an alphabetical list of the names of the Community Council.

The full report and raw data can be found in this PDF on the Council website detailing the other areas of spending as mentioned in the above graph.

(Picture: Money.)