Nearly a quarter of council home tenants living in Milton Keynes are living in old or run-down buildings, according to figures from MK Council.
Figures show that close to 1 in 4 (23%) of all council homes in Milton Keynes failed to meet the Decent Home Standards.
Dramatically, the number of non-decent homes in MK has shot up over 10% since last year, raising questions about the Council’s maintenance of council houses in the city.
The national average of non-decent Council homes in England is 13%, meaning the Labour and Liberal Democrat Council are failing residents and leaving them in unsafe or decaying conditions.
Homes that fail to meet the standard are either run down, too cold, or have facilities that are too old and fail to meet statutory safety requirements.
According to data from the Local Government Association, MK Council is one of the worst local authorities in the country for maintaining decent homes standards.
Cllr Alex Walker, Leader of the Conservative Group, said:
“Residents need to see efforts to drive up standards, but I suspect the Council will only provide excuses or blame the Conservatives, despite being in power for 7 years.
It is awful that so many council homes in MK are failing to meet those necessary standards.
We should be driving up housing standards, not finding out that yet again this Council are failing to meet basic requirements and living standards for those living in council houses.”
In Response, Councillor Emily Darlington, Cabinet Member for Adults, Housing & Healthy Communities, said:
“Milton Keynes’ council homes are currently at the national average, however, we are more ambitious and over the next two years more than nine out of ten council homes will exceed the decent homes standard.
“After years of under investment in our council homes by the Conservatives, Labour councillors have invested £165m over five years to make them better and greener.
“In addition, we are building more new council homes for generations.”
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