A local authority awarded a C3 grading by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) due to issues with its housing stock has announced a £136.6 million investment in its homes.

The Harlow Council housing budget for 2025 to 2026 represents a doubling of the council’s spending on housing from 2019/2020.

The council says while overall investment to transform its council housing is increasing by 23%, housing rents will only increase by 2.7%.

The budget, which funds services to 9,000 council tenanted homes including supported housing schemes, will see no service reductions or job losses, but increased investment, the council adds.

Last year, the Harlow Council was deemed non-compliant with the regulator’s consumer standards and awarded a C3 grading.

The RSH investigated the council after reviewing its Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) results. It found that the council had:

• Carried out fire risk assessments for only 20% of buildings that it should have done, out of its 9,100 social housing homes
• Over 500 high risk fire safety remedial actions overdue, and a further 1,500 medium risk actions overdue (the majority of which are more than 12 months overdue).

The council has been working with the regulator to implement an improvement plan to address the issues.

From 1 April 2025, thanks to the extra investment, the council can now:

• Upgrade and refurbish many more council homes
• Improve its repairs and maintenance service to ensure repairs are carried out more quickly and to a better standard
• Roll out the tenancy audit programme to inspect every council home every year and ensure it is providing its tenants with the right support
• Fully meet every commitment made to the RSH
• Accelerate the 100% internal and external specialist stock condition survey of every home to improve maintenance and better plan investment
• Reduce the turnaround time on empty council homes
• Create over 1,500 new residential parking spaces in our neighbourhoods
• Implement the overhauled housing allocations system to ensure that local homes are for local families.

The council will also improve the services funded by tenants and leaseholders from service charges.

Councillor David Carter, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Housing, said: “We’re on a mission to transform Harlow’s housing. That’s why our budget this year increases our overall investment into council housing services to £136.6 million in 2025/26 from £111 million in 2024/25. That is a 23% increase in our budget, whilst protecting our tenants with just a 2.7% rent increase.

“This huge investment means we can concentrate on putting right the things that matter to our tenants and making our homes better places to live in. There will be more money for repairing and maintaining homes, more money for improving homes and more money for improving housing services.”

Alongside the investment in its housing stock, Harlow Council has also announced new service standards for its maintenance company HTS.

The council says the new standards will ensure that there are “radical improvements” to how grass is cut to improve the appearance of the town as part of the council’s mission to ‘renew our neighbourhoods.’

The new service standards mean that:

• HTS will cut the grass every 10 working days as opposed to every 17 working days to ensure it is kept shorter and tidier
• Grass will be cut and strimmed at the same time by the same team of three so that grass is not overgrown around obstacles
• All areas will be strimmed rather than using weed control solutions which kill the grass
• The grass cutting season will be significantly extended and now run from the start of March to the end of October to ensure the town looks tidier
• Litter will be cleared before grass is cut
• Strimming will include self-seeded areas around trees and adjacent to properties to stop unsightly growth
• New inspections of completed work and revised performance measures to match the new standards.

Further changes to the contract and service standards are also set to be introduced for the cutting back of bushes and hedgerows through the spring, summer, and autumn to ensure paths and sightlines are kept clear for pedestrians and road users to improve safety across the town.

Councillor Nicky Purse, cabinet portfolio holder for sustainability and environment, said: “In recent years, we have made improvements to the grass cutting programme in the town, but this year we have gone much further.

“We have completely changed the contract and the service standards to ensure that the grass is cut more regularly, but also that litter is removed, and strimming takes place all at the same time. This is the standard of work that both our residents and the council expect in order to properly maintain our wonderful green spaces.

“We will also be stopping the use of harmful weed control solutions and instead strimming weeds and self-seeded areas and introducing inspections of completed work to ensure that the work being carried out meets our new standards.

“We are on a mission to renew our neighbourhoods, and these changes are another positive step to deliver that. Additionally, we are ensuring that bushes and hedgerows are cut back regularly to maintain clear sightlines, improving safety for pedestrians and road users across the town.”