By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
A new scheme helping council tenants with the cost of decorating their homes when they move in will be rolled out across a Nottinghamshire district.
Newark and Sherwood District Council said it piloted the project for six months and found an increase in customer satisfaction and a reduction in complaints.
Now, councillors have approved the roll-out of the project permanently after a cabinet meeting on July 12.
Currently, the District Council lets around 400 homes each year and the pilot involved 242 empty properties.
The pilot, which ran from October 2021 to March 2022, helped with preparation for decorating the homes before tenants moved in.
Tenants were then given the option to use a “starting well’ fund which is an offer of vouchers up to £500 per property to use towards carpets, decorating materials or white goods.
Improvements were also made internally so that any major works on a property that were scheduled within two years would be completed whilst the home was empty.
Following the pilot, around 47 per cent of tenants said they would have struggled to carpet, decorate or buy an appliance for their home without the support.
At the end of March 2022, the year-end satisfaction figure for lettings was 98 er cent, compared with 93 per cent for March 2021.
Councillor Rhona Holloway (Con) said: “I think it has a significant impact on the tenants and I think it’s a really good thing to do.”
Councillor Roger Jackson (Con) added: “This is a great initiative, I think it has given them a good start in their new homes and I think it’s another way that bringing housing stock back in house was a very good decision to make.”
Councillor Paul Peacock, Leader of the Leader Group, agreed and added: “I think it is the best decision the council has made while I’ve been back on the council.
“The differences across all service areas have led to improvements across housing.
“This paper is one example of that.”
Tim Wendels, Portfolio Holder for Homes and Health at Newark and Sherwood District Council, said: “During the difficult financial climate for everyone we wanted to review our Lettable Standard and see where we could make improvements to help our tenants.
“Supporting tenants with funds to meet their individual priorities means we can help take away some of the challenges of moving into a new home.
“These new enhancements to the Lettable Standard also contribute to the District Council’s Community Plan objective to ‘create more and better quality homes thorough their roles as landlord, developer and planning authority’.
“Pilot schemes like this are a great way for us to test the waters before we fully commit. The feedback we’ve gained clearly shows it would be beneficial for our tenants and we hope this will continue to be reflected in our excellent satisfaction ratings with the service.”
