Thomas Gould
Question:321. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the process by which a void renovation is sanctioned. [3810/21]
View answerWednesday, 27 January 2021
Questions (321, 322)
Thomas Gould
Question:322. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the length of time, on average, it takes for a void renovation to be sanctioned from initial contact by the local authority. [3811/21]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 321 and 322 together.
The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including the cost of pre-letting repairs to vacant properties and the carrying out of responsive repairs, are matters for each individual local authority under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. However since 2014, Exchequer funding has also been provided through my Departments Voids programme to support local authorities in preparing vacant units for re-letting.
Historically the programme has been administered through a “call for proposal” initiative where local authorities were invited to submit a funding request to support the return of vacant units to productive use within local authority ownership. For 2020, the allocation process also considered each local authorities stock number as a percentage of the overall national stock as this is a more equitable method of distributing the available funding.
In response to the annual submission of proposed works programmes by local authorities the approval process takes approximately 5-6 weeks. This was demonstrated in the 2020 July stimulus programme whereby preliminary allocations issued to each local authority on July 30th and final work programme approvals issued between the 4th & 7th September.
It is important that local authorities increasingly move toward a preventative maintenance approach to the management of their housing stock and my Department is working with local authorities to this end.