Repairs, maintenance and improvement of council housing

Safety checks

As a landlord, we must check the gas connection and appliances in our tenancies each year to make sure that they are safe for you to use.

Also we make sure that appliances are connected properly, boilers and fires are operating correctly and that they are properly ventilated and are in good working order. The law and good practice dictates that we must do this once a year,

To carry out this work, engineers have to be able to access your home. Once this work is satisfactorily carried out, tenants will be provided with a copy of the landlord's gas certificate, called a Landlord Gas Safety Record (LGSR).

We carry out operational checks on solid fuel, air source heat pumps and solar panels once a year.

We have appointed an external contractor to carry out gas and solid fuel safety checks. The external contractor will contact tenants directly to arrange these.

We carry out regular electric safety checks and our own staff will arrange for this work to be completed.

Contact and arranging appointments

For all fuel types, tenants will be contacted on on a maximum of three occasions.

Tenants will receive a letter several weeks before the checks must take place with a suggested appointment. If you cannot make this date and time, you should contact to re-arrange your appointment. As with all repair work, a responsible adult must be present to allow access.

If there is no-one present to allow access, a drop card will be left. A second contact letter will be sent asking you to contact our external contractor to arrange access.

Compulsory access

If you do not make alternative access arrangements with the contractor within the timescale, we will begin our Compulsory Access Procedure. 

In accordance with the law, this procedure allows us to carry out urgent work in a property. We will hand deliver an appointment letter to your home at least 24 hours before access is needed. If you are not at home on the time and date specified in this letter, we will enter the property. This will be by way of forced access.

In these cases, we will charge an administration fee to cover our expenses and the associated costs e.g. lock change. You have the right to appeal this recharge. Please contact an area housing office.