Newcastle tower blocks plagued by damp and mould problems are set to have “inadequate” ventilation systems replaced, as council chiefs deal with more than 1,000 outsanding complaints across the city.
Housing blocks in the city are in line for major repairs, as part of efforts to bring thousands of council homes up to standard. After abolishing arms-length management organisation Your Homes Newcastle and taking back control of around 25,000 properties last summer, Newcastle City Council has since found that it is failing to meet newly-introduced standards from the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in 16 different areas – including concerns over a serious backlog of damp and mould cases.
Local authority bosses now say they are making “demonstrable” progress in dealing with some of those problems. According to a new report due to be presented to the council’s cabinet next week, latest figures show that the backload of damp and mould reports was cut by more than a third over a three-month period last year.
The number of outstanding cases fell from 1,867 in July 2024 to 1,205 as of October 25 last year, with hopes that the entire backlog can be cleared by April this year. That report also outlines plans to upgrade “inadequate” ventilation systems in communal housing blocks suffering from condensation problems, starting next month with the low-rise Clarence House and Stoddart House in Shieldfield before moving on to any other housing blocks in need of repairs.
A Newcastle City Council spokesperson said: “The two blocks that will be receiving the new ventilation system next month will be Clarence and Stoddart House. We are carrying out structural and stock condition surveys which are helping us to identify and prioritise any blocks that require damp and mould remedial works which will be ongoing throughout 2025/26.”
The council is carrying out a full condition survey of its entire housing stock to fully assess what state its properties are in. Just over 3,000 inspections had been completed as of the end of October and it is expected that it will take until June 2027 to get through every council house in the city.
Those inspections resulted in 64 Health and Housing Safety Rating System (HHSRS) notifications, of which 12 were “significant” hazards that demanded immediate safety works. Civic centre housing chiefs are expecting to be awarded a C3 grading by the RSH, meaning that there are “serious failings” and that the landlord needs to make “significant improvements”, having referred itself to the regulator over the non-compliance with its standards.
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