Concerns were raised at Wednesday’s Housing Committee
Providing an update on the state of government housing Senior Housing Officer Kirsty Williams confirmed there are currently 193 properties in the contract pool, which includes 24 private rentals.
Of these properties, 31 are vacant with 30 allocated to incoming contractors. This leaves one property which is currently offline for full refurbishment.
16 houses currently occupied are allocated to incoming contractors, with Mrs Williams saying, “that leaves me with two contractors that I know are going to be leaving in the coming months that I haven’t reallocated their house, so that’s three houses in total left. It’s pretty scary at the minute”.
Mrs Williams was asked if these numbers included the properties at Bennett’s Paddock, and she confirmed this did not. There are still another 15 houses to be built in this location, with some of these being local rentals. The majority of these will be for the contractor pool, however, they aren’t included as there is no completion date yet.
Issues with contractor housing are further complicated with Mrs Williams noting there is a “huge turnover of teaching staff in August” which due to flight timings, between teachers leaving and new staff coming in, there is approximately a one-week turnaround for this. It was said to be “very tight” and a “logistical nightmare”
In the local pool, there are 179 houses, five of which are currently offline for refurbishment.
Rent and furniture rental increases have also had an impact across both local and contractor pools with an increase in requests to downsize properties and return rented furniture. Mrs Williams said she has “no flexibility to move anybody”.
