Housing complaints to Newham Council nearly double in year

Newham Council’s housing repair complaints has jumped from 743 for 2020/21 to 1,212 for 2021/22, a report for the local authority has revealed. 

Cabinet member for housing services, Shaban Mohammed, called the findings “very disappointing” at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening (November 1). 

“I’m really disappointed with the findings in the report,” he said. “I really want to work hard with our tenant leaseholders to improve our care service and to improve the engagement that we do with our residents. 

“Hopefully when we do that six months review, we should be on that journey of change, journey of improvement and making sure that we respond to residents really, really quickly – and do the first-time fixes with our repair service.” 

For the year of 2021/22, 62 per cent (717) of housing repair complaints – which included issues left unfixed, delays in responding and substandard repairs - were upheld. 

The housing complaints data, broken down into categories (Image: LDRS)

In response to the findings, the council’s repairs and maintenance service is working with resident experience teams on a project to review how it can improve. 

Ultimately, Newham Council received the highest number of complaints for housing repairs, followed by parking and enforcement, housing allocations, housing services, highways and traffic, housing needs, temporary accommodation, anti-social behaviour and nuisance, waste and parks and open spaces. 

It comes after data recently published by the Local Government Ombudsman found Newham Council ranked third for the most housing complaints in London between 2016 and 2022. 

Of the complaints for that period, 69.32 per cent were upheld. 

Haringey Council came first, with 70.19 per cent upheld housing complaints followed by Lambeth Council with 68.18 per cent.