What is the Decent Homes Standard?
This is a government target to ensure that all social housing meets set standards of decency by 2010.
What is a decent home?
In order to be decent a home should be warm, weatherproof and have reasonably modern facilities.
Your home needs to meet all four of the decent homes criteria listed below to be classed as decent:
- It is free of all Category 1 hazards as defined in the Housing Health and Safety Ratings System introduced in April 2006
- It is in a reasonable state of repair
- It has reasonably modern facilities and services
- It provides a reasonable degree of thermal comfort - this means that your home must have both effective insulation and efficient heating.
Click here for more information about the Decent Homes standards.
How does Three Valleys compare to the standard?
In more than five years since transfer, £43 million has been spent on major improvements which has gone a long way to Three Valleys Housing meeting the Decent Homes standard. As of Autumn 2010 we are now 100% fully compliant with Decent Homes. This is a fantastic achievement as we also exceeded the minimum requirement needed to pass Decent Homes and provided a better service to residents of Three Valleys Housing.
In figures
We have upgraded over 5000 homes since the begining of the Decent Homes Programme.
Since 2007 alone Three Valleys has installed 565 new kitchens, 200 bathrooms and 230 rooms, as well as completing electrical rewiring and upgrades pointing and rendering homes.
The future?
We will not rest on our good work and we have completed this year and we will strive to be 100% compliant with Decent Homes next year too.
For more information about Decent Homes, visit the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Revised 16/11/2010 jr