Health and safety in tenants homes
Cunninghame Housing Association places strong emphasis on the Health and Safety of our homes, particularly in the areas of gas and electrical safety.
Every year for gas we have to cap/force access to over 100 properties where access has been refused to service the gas boiler. Often tenants have no credit in the pre-payment meters and the service cannot be completed. The meter is capped until the tenant puts gas credit in the meter. We would like to avoid taking this action against tenants and would like to work with tenants to assist them with their gas supply to ensure their homes are properly heated, particularly, throughout the winter months. We refer tenants to Citrus Energy our energy advice company who can liaise with the energy companies on a tenants behalf, to hopefully resolve issues of debt and unaffordable suppliers.
As part of our own review of Health and Safety we have decided to follow a similar approach for Electrical Safety as we do for Gas Safety. We have embarked on a comprehensive programme of testing the electrical safety of all homes on a 5 year cycle.
Following the Grenfell Tower fire, new legislation came into force to improve the coverage and operation of fire detection within the home. The Association has until 2021 to improve the fire alarm and where applicable CO alarm coverage in all our domestic housing stock. This is a legal requirement we will force access where necessary to ensure the safety of the property and its occupants