The Property Services Manager introduced the report and provided a presentation that included before and after photographs to demonstrate the impacts of individual schemes.  He said that the great estates programme had been delayed due to uncertainties around Housing Revenue Account funding and that a resulting under-spend would be carried into next year.  Some cyclical maintenance budgets would also be rolled in to funding allocated to estates regeneration.  Over time, the effects of this programme should be seen in tenant satisfaction measures.

In response to a question about member walkabouts, the Head of Housing advised that local members needed to be involved when schemes were being drawn up. The survey methodology that had been developed at Barton would be rolled out to other areas.  This would involve taking a holistic approach on an estate-wide basis to identify significant problems and working up a rolling four-year programme of priority schemes, as £4.8m over four years would not solve all issues.

The Panel asked whether Barton was the only site with a masterplan and when other masterplans would be developed.  The Head of Housing advised that there was not yet a timetable for further masterplans but member involvement would be built in to these plans.

The Panel welcomed plans to survey and assess all garage sites and heard that pragmatic decisions would be made on whether to redevelop garage sites based on condition, location and usages.  The Board Member for Housing advised that he would encourage community groups with storage needs to rent garages.